


Amnesia

by mikeywritings



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Dark Ashton, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Withdrawal, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Innocent Luke, M/M, Protective Ashton, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-05-16 07:55:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 51,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5820415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikeywritings/pseuds/mikeywritings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year together, and their walls are beginning to crumble, falling to their feet in obliterated parcels. Space is growing between them, wearing them both down and bringing them to do things that they would have never thought to have done before. In escape from the pain of their infamous arguments, Ashton injects a venom into his system until he's lying down with his head high in the clouds. Luke is pushed into the shadows, watching with sadness in his wide eyes that wishes Ashton would return to him. (Ashton gets hooked on heroin, and it makes the rocky conditions between him and Luke even more treacherous.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Give Me Your Love

**Author's Note:**

> Lemme know what you think in the comments. x
> 
> This chapter has not been edited !

The entirety of the twenty minute car ride could be explained as nothing else but uncomfortable. No words were spoken between the two, and not a single sound could be made out other than the gentle hum of the car's engine and the occasional shifting as Luke constantly repositioned himself in the front passenger's seat. The atmosphere was nearly bursting him into an anxious sweat.

Luke's fingers fiddled with his seatbelt, running his callused fingertips over the woven polyester out of anxiety of arriving home with him. He could feel the rage radiating off of Ashton's tense body as he drove behind the wheel, his molars clenching and unclenching, fingers tightly gripped along the steering wheel. Luke could watch his jaw tense from a distance, even in the darkness of the car in the midst of the night.

He wants to avoid returning home – not with Ashton's annoyed temper bringing the heated tension to a scalding boil. He can feel his skin falling cold as Ashton’s intensifies. As much as Luke wanted to pretend that he didn't do anything to ignite an argument, he couldn't avoid it, either. It was inevitable. The thought hadn’t occurred to him once he was caught and Ashton yanked him by the wrist out of the congested dance floor. They had left the strobe-infested club before he could warn Michael or Calum of their departure. It was their idea to leave the house, anyways. But according to Ashton, it didn’t matter.

 _She was the one who got too close to me,_ Luke thinks bitterly to himself.  _I was trying to have fun, and she got touchy. It was purely an accident! I didn't want that to happen. **It wasn't my fault.**_ But it made sense once he was snapped out of his buzz and the aggressive hold of Ashton’s hold tightened around his wrist.

Ashton made a sharp left onto their home road, sending Luke's body to thump rather harshly against the door, Luke's head clashing with the window. He let out a pained groan as he ran his hand through his flattening hair and rubbed the throbbing area, his lips pressed in a tight line. He scowls as he notices the unbearable sensation of his hair somewhat stiffened from all the products he combed through it when he styled it for the night out. He shouldn't have bothered.

 _Shower,_ he thinks,  _I need to take a shower._

Before Luke could grumble a small complaint, Ashton pulled into their driveway and set the car into park, slipping out and slamming his door closed – a bit harder than what was really necessary. It made Luke wince in his seat. Luke remained stationary in the car until Ashton made it up to the porch, fishing his keys out from his back pocket to unlock their front door.

It took him a moment before Luke built the guts up and dragged himself out of the car, his heels scuffing against the pavement winding to the steps leading to his front porch. He watches with soft and hazy eyes as Ashton holds open the door for Luke, avoiding his gaze. Even when he's in a sour mood, Ashton never fails to be a gentleman, Luke thinks to himself.

Luke enters their home, shrugging his jacket off from his shoulders and hanging on the rack by the door. Ashton's eyes never left him once he took his first step back into their home. 

The outer rim of Ashton's hazel iris darkened, making his obscuring stare all the more intimidating to watch. Luke murmurs about how he is going to go upstairs to take his shower, but Ashton's reflexes are much faster. He grasps onto Luke's bicep, pulling him back, leaving only a foot of space in between themselves. Luke can feel Ashton’s sighs waft over his cheeks and flutter his eyelashes.

Luke had stumbled into Ashton's chest, his brow furrowing from the touch, showing his obvious aggravation with the contact. 

"Why are you so damn afraid of admitting that this is your fault, Luke?" Ashton scoffs in infuriation to Luke’s tenacious attitude. His level of patience is slowly shortening, strings being snapped one by one the more Luke refused to admit to his slip. Ashton releases Luke to cross his tense arms against his robust chest. "Why are you so persistent on trying to annoy me? What is so hard about admitting that _anything_ is your fault?" Ashton seethed these words from between his set of gritted teeth, his teeth beginning to ache from the immense pressure he applied to his jaw.

Again, he received no response from Luke. He kept his lips sealed in fear of saying the wrong thing that may only fuel his boyfriend's rage. However, Luke's silence itches at Ashton's low serenity, triggering him to fist at his golden brown head of greasy yet bouncy curls in a frustrated manner. He ran his large hands through them repeatedly and swished the ringlets aside and out from his line of vision, only for a few stray strands to flop to his heating forehead.

Yanking his arm away from Ashton’s constrictive hold, Luke paces his way into the living area and plops himself down on the couch, his back sinking into the plush cushions. He locates the television remote sitting upon the coffee table, snatching it and flicking on the TV.

Luke's baby blue eyes have glued themselves to the brilliant screen before him as if he hadn't heard a single word fall from Ashton's supple lips just a moment ago. It was as if he had just simply disconnected himself from the world around him, as though he has gone deaf. The truth is that he is far too intimidated to look his own lover in the eye and to come clean of his mistakes.

He’s a coward. He knows this.

He'll admit it to himself that he has an issue when it comes to verbally speaking about his mistakes. He knows that he must give Ashton the proper apology that he rightfully deserves. He wants to act like he has never made a mistake in the first place so there would be no reason that Ashton would have such burning anger.

Having difficulty finding the right words to speak, now truly pretending as if he had the inability to hear, Luke has his eyes trained on the television screen in front of him, absentmindedly watching the pointless adult cartoons that could be characterized by his mother as nothing else but absurd. To Luke, it’s his main source of entertainment.

Luke swallowed thickly, feeling as though his words were all welling up in a growing cluster within the midst of his throat. He wanted to bite back at Ashton with his own words but he was far too much of a wimp and he knew he had some faults to engage himself into a nasty bickering contest with Ashton, who is known to say some pretty crude things when he's been agitated.

“Answer me!”

Luke let his hands lie flat on his lap, his fingers occasionally twiddling with one another and picking underneath the nails. He let his teeth sink into the flesh of his tongue, gnawing at the flesh to keep himself from letting out a small whimper at the loud booming of his boyfriend's words. He hates to admit that he was a coward in these types of situations. He wishes he weren’t.

He knew that Ashton was talking anger and that he wasn't going to come to a halt anytime soon. He knew that there is that sharp tone held in his voice as he was insisting to make Luke snap. He knew that he was going to crumble and apologize repeatedly at the end of their heated argument and insist that they can make their relationship work. It's how it always ends - one having beg for the other to stay, to keep them company and to return back to the way when they would give one another the unconditional love that they have bottled up.

Ashton laughs bitterly, his teeth sharply biting into the full flesh of his lower lip, causing for it to turn a ghostly white from the intense pressure. With swift movements that were made in the blink of an eye, Ashton snatches the TV remote off from the coffee table and flicks the television off, leaving the two in an uncomfortable fit of silence. Luke felt as if he was being swallowed by the devil himself.

Luke shifts uncomfortably in his spot on the plush couch, making his tall and lean figure slouch farther into the large cushions. He still managed to avoid meeting eyes with Ashton's icy cold pair of hazel.

"Are you just going pretend like it never happened like you always do?" Ashton's voice lowered down a few notches in volume, but not quite enough for Luke's liking. "Admit that what you did was wrong, Luke."

Luke inattentively bit at his lip ring, dragging the piece of metal backward into his mouth and releasing it to let his lip fall back into place. This became a natural newborn habit for Luke whenever he came to face an uncomfortable situation. His shoulders jumped slightly as he let a small sob erupt from the back of his throat, the familiar sensation of stinging appearing in his eyes.

"It meant nothing," Luke croaked. "It was just one drink too many. I was buzzed, and she led me into temptation-,"

"If you're blaming just the stranger for smacking her lips with you, you are wrong. You pressed into that goddamned kiss just as much as she did." Ashton's words always held a hint of a growl towards the end, causing for waves of electricity to surge up Luke's spine. It was an unpleasant feeling, knowing that Ashton's low growling can quickly avert to abusive yelling in the fraction of a second. This kept Luke on edge and ready to fight back against Ashton himself although he hated to do so.

Luke nodded slowly in understanding, his body trembling as tears welled in the corners of his eyes and trickled down the hot flesh of his cheeks. He laid back into the couch, his eyes finally meeting Ashton's for the first time since they had excused themselves from the Funky Buddha from the rest of the boys. He cringed as Ashton's sharp stare embedded into him, his heart clenching within the tight boundaries of his chest.

"I'm in a relationship with you," Luke begins, his voice beginning to sound unreliable the more he spoke. The more he talked, the more it began to quiver. "I should be more loyal, and I should be treating you better. I'm sorry, Ash." His eyes fall to the floor again as his vision glossed with the relentless tears, refusing to stay back. The hot droplets spilled over the corners of Luke's eyes and slid down his reddening cheeks, showing no sign of stopping.

Ashton let a dragged sigh leave his lips, his index finger and thumb pinching at the bridge of his nose. His eyelids clamped shut, crinkles creasing at the corners of his eyes.

Luke watched with red trimmed eyes as the boy before him was beginning to become suffocated beneath the heavy force of frustration, feeling somewhat conflicted. He used the back of his hands to wipe at his cheeks, dampened with tears as they raced down his blazing hot skin. He took a sudden intake of air, his eyes widening. Luke was not taking the long paused silence in the best way possible, his shoulders tensing.

"Don't leave me Ash," he begins to gush, cheeks darkening. "I know, I know, I sound so unbelievably selfish and pathetic right now, but I need you." He ran his long digits though his gelled hair, flattening his hair further. He laughed breathily, his lower lip trembling as more sobs began to threaten to fall from his swollen lips.

Ashton let his hand fall back down to his side, the palm of his hand slapping against his thigh. His eyelids cracked open and his eyes landed precisely on Luke, his brow furrowing heavily. As he presses his lips together to form a straight and thin line, Ashton stuffs his hands into his jean pockets, shrugging his broad shoulders.

"You're leaving me," Luke breathed. "You... You can't leave me Ashton. My God… I really need you in my life. Ashton please…"

"Let me speak before you jump to conclusions," Ashton says firmly, holding straight authority in his voice, the volume from his fueled anger deceased. He held out his hand, palm facing towards Luke to halt him from interrupting. Luke obeyed, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows thickly, awaiting for further words to be spoken. "I'm not leaving. Hell, I don't ever think I can leave you, Luke. But I am running thin here, and you know that."

Luke nods slowly as he begins to nibble down on his thumb nail, his eyes flickering all around Ashton's face for some visual clue of what was to be spoken next. Unfortunately, Luke couldn't gather anything from Ashton but the visible frustration in his crinkled forehead. He begins to bounce his knee, impatiently waiting for the real verbal damage to be done. He was on edge, and the only thing that he was able to unscramble was that Ashton is going to deliver words to Luke that won't be very easy on him.

He kissed someone else, and he must pay the price.

Ashton's eyes caught with Luke's once more, tearing his gaze from him so that he could still own the ability to speak boldly towards him. "We're coming up close to our one year anniversary," he began, taking small intakes of breath as he pauses between words. "And... I feel that we aren't going to make it to that point if we keep making the same mistakes that we're committing to ourselves to right now, especially with what you did an hour ago. We wouldn’t stand a chance, Luke."

With a heavy heart, Luke braced himself by clutching on the plush couch cushions, boosting himself up onto the flats of his feet, standing with a slight slouch to his posture. He closed the distance between him and Ashton, wrapping his arms around his lover and clutched on to him securely, afraid of being abandoned. Ashton quickly returned the favor, his strong arms finding their way to wrap around Luke's slim waist.

They clutched on to each other that way, slightly swaying to the sides as Ashton perches his chin on top of Luke's shoulder. Luke nuzzles his face into the warm crevice of Ashton's neck, dragging a few lazy kisses across the sensitive junction where Ashton's neck and shoulder meet. Drawing the skin in between his lips, Luke began to teasingly suckle at the tanned skin, listening closely to what Ashton has to say. This was a common way for Luke to show is adoring affection for Ashton, leaving Ashton with commonly bitten bruises along his neck.

Luke takes note of the sudden pitched inhalation being imported into Ashton's lungs, giving him the courage to sink his teeth gingerly into the same patch of skin that he had his lips latched on to. Ashton's hands became a little tense on the small of Luke's back, his fingertips pressing into the fabric of his Misfits tank to let the pads of his fingers run across the small dip in his lower back.

Ashton's eyelids flutter to a blissful close, relishing the warmth of Luke's full set of lips caressing his skin alongside with the occasional scrape of his teeth. His eyes flew open at the first sudden impact of his teeth, but his muscles softened as he let the rush that he gave him take his body and lead it to another place known as Cloud 9. Ashton was blessed to have such a pleasurable boy such as Luke.

The blonde boy kept taking small baby steps forward, his lips now peppering small kisses across the sensitive skin of Ashton's neck, occasionally returning back to the newly made love bite to press another gentle kiss to the sore and bruised area. As Luke's lips continued to caress and give attention to Ashton's skin, Ashton was mentally swearing to himself to control his lustful wants, to keep himself collected and to just accept what was being given at the moment.

Taking Luke's face into his hands, Ashton let the calloused pads of his thumbs brush against the traces of his past tears. Ashton leaned in, pressing his warm forehead against Luke's, their noses grazing against each other in an affectionate manner. Luke's lips spread to form a soft smile, his teeth capturing his lip piercing and drawing it backwards, anxious for their lips to meet.

Luke quickly released the piece of metal from his teeth as he felt the warmth of Ashton's lips grazing against his, tempted to press against Luke's for some want of comfort, to seek for the compassion that was always held in their given kisses.

Luke immediately closed the space between them, unable to withhold the wait for much longer. He crashed their lips together in a messy kiss, their eyelids fluttering to a pleasant close. Ashton parted his lips, sending Luke a signal for him to follow his movements. This ended up a blissful session where their soft lips moved against each other, one occasionally capturing the other's lower lip and suckling on the full flesh.

Luke's heart began to hammer within the boundaries of his chest, his hands ending up slotted through the loose and messy curls that sat upon Ashton's head, somewhat tamed by that same damned red bandana that was becoming grimy and in need of a wash. Luke's fingers caught at the cloth, pulling it out from Ashton's messy head of untamed curls, tossing it elsewhere carelessly.

Ashton hardly cared about where his precious hair accessory fell at this moment. His attention was focused only on attacking Luke's lips, pressing a bit aggressively into the steaming kiss. Luke whimpers a bit at the sudden harshness from Ashton, his brow furrowing as Ashton's teeth sunk into the full flesh of his bottom lip.

Still having Luke's lip caught in between his teeth, Ashton pulled back and cracked his eyelids open to watch as he pulled at the flesh, stretching at it until another pathetic and small whimper erupted from the back of Luke's throat. Once having released his lip, Luke's eyelids fluttered open, crystal blue immediately locking with a pair of warm hazel.

Their lips were swollen and a bit red, their tongues running across their pulsating lips as they soothed the reddened skin. Luke was the first to let a small smile spread on to his lips, his fingers untangling themselves from the mess of Ashton's unruly hair, causing for his arms to fall to his sides. Ashton's hands, of which ended up on Luke's hips, fell back to his own sides, the corners of his lips curling as he returned the smile.

"I can't ever seem to stay mad at you, you little shit," Ashton breaths, his voice coming out to be a bit gravelly.

Luke shook his head, stepping forward once more and fisted at Ashton's cotton shirt, firmly grasping at the material. "I'll do whatever it takes to keep you here," Luke says, sounding as though he was a bit out of breath.

Ashton shook his head, his hands grabbing at Luke's wrists and prying his hands away from his now-crinkled shirt. He leaned forward, his lips grazing against the shell of Luke's ear. "What do you say about some cuddling in bed? This has been one hell of a make-up." Ashton began to slightly nuzzle up to him, his curls tickling at Luke's cheek.

Luke hummed. "I stink of beer and shitty bar food. I think that it's safe to say that you smell, too." His hands twisted so he was now grasping at Ashton's wrists, his thumb running across his prominent knuckles. "Would you like to take a shower with me?"

“Damn. You tell me I smell and then you ask me to join you in the shower?” Ashton grins. "You most certainly don't have to ask me twice."

~|~

Ashton had pressed Luke against the cool tile walls, the cold contrasting against the warmth of Luke's skin. The difference of temperature in Luke body and the shower walls shot a wave of goosebumps, prickling up onto the surface of his skin, a shiver contorting through his body and his teeth chattering.

Having been stripped of any clothes, their skin contacted with the whirling air around them, both Ashton and Luke are standing underneath the shower head and are entangled in each other, limbs lazily thrown around one another. Their lips move together in a languid and sloppy manner, the soft smacks of their lips cutting through the vast space of the bathroom. Luke is fisting at Ashton's wet chunks of hair, forcing him to apply more pressure into their heated kiss.

It's safe to say that after a heated argument and after apologizing for careless actions, both boys were looking for some sort of comfort from the other to reassure themselves that their relationship is keeping strong, that they are still bound together the same rope as before, that is hopefully never to fray or tear.

Ashton's hands traveled up and downward from Luke's hips, running up his torso and tracing the pads of his thumbs down the small ridges of muscles in his abdomen. Parting from the kiss, he latched himself onto the canvas of Luke's neck, decorating his skin with soft and lazy kisses until he located the spot of which had Luke almost trembling and his knees buckling underneath. He suckles on to the patch of skin just underneath Luke's ear, his teeth sinking into the skin and his tongue soothing over the bruising area.

Luke simply stood there as his knees began to slightly wobble, arching his head to the side as he delivered Ashton more access to his neck. As Ashton's hands caressed his skin at his abdomen and his lips where giving much affection to his neck, Luke's eyes were pinched closed and he relished and soaked in the warmth that the hot water brought as it cascaded over both him and his godly boyfriend - drenching them and having water drop from every nook and cranny on their bodies.

Luke's hands eventually found some type of use to them as they began to thread through Ashton's head of dripping curls, tightly clutching at them and pulling at his scalp. His toes began to curl into the tile flooring underneath them, his blood coursing through his veins, his cheeks become hot and flushed. He found himself looking into Ashton's eyes as his sweet spot throbbed, now a newly-made bruise. He smiles broadly as he gazed into Ashton's obscuring eyes, darkened with a desire for Luke.

A small laugh falls from Ashton's lips as he brought his supple lips back to Luke's skin, slowly bending his knees, then kneeling down in front of the panting boy whom he gets to claim as  _his_. It’s still a miracle that he has such a beautiful boy to proclaim as his. With a contagious grin tugging at his lips, he lets the tip of his nose graze against the happy trail of hair along Luke's navel, his lips dragging against the soft skin. Soon enough, he's breathing over Luke's most sensitive part in his body, his host breath fanning over Luke’s half-hard length. Luke twitched as Ashton's hot breath washed over him, biting back a gasp when Ashton grasps Luke’s hardening member in hand.

He begins to tug Luke at a deliberately slow pace, his eyes flickering up towards him as he takes in his scrunched expression, his teeth still dug in to his lower lip. Luke's head thunks against the shower wall as he throws his head back, a small and unintentional moan falling from his swollen and delectable lips. This ignited a victorious smirk to perch its way onto Ashton's lips, encouraging the snap of his wrist to quicken, blood rushing to Luke’s dick, the head dark and as red as his bitten lips.

Craving for a larger reaction from Luke, Ashton's tongue licked a fat stripe at the underside of Luke's pulsating member, sending Luke's muscles in his abdomen to constrict and slightly bulge out in response. Luke released his lip and bit at his tongue, forcing himself to keep control of his composure and to keep himself from bucking his hips forward. Ashton’s known for teasing.

Ashton wrapped his lips around the uncut head of Luke's member, suckling at the sensitive tip and letting his tongue slide fluently against the slit. This action let Luke send out a gravelly moan from the back of his throat, his hands finding their way back through Ashton's wet curls. He glanced down and watched the way his boyfriend’s lips wrapped perfectly around his throbbing member with one hand firmly wrapped around the base. He groaned lightly at the sight, his lips opening to a slight agape.

Ashton gradually lowers himself farther onto Luke, hollowing his cheeks as he took more if him into his mouth, encasing Luke's length in pleasurable warmth that send his head back against the wall with a dull thud. This made Luke antsy, his hips drawing themselves forward with the burning want that he desired, urging Ashton forward - to take in more of him like he knows he can.

The burning indulgence that Ashton is giving willingly to Luke is overwhelming, his throat swallowing thickly as his hips involuntarily snapped forward. Having done so, Ashton's hand that was once wrapped around him fell and moved to plant itself firmly at his hip. Ashton pinched his eyelids shut, his forehead creasing in the process as he focused on bringing the boy in front of him the pleasure he so desperately craved for.

As soon as Luke buried himself in Ashton's mouth, the smooth tip of Luke's length brushed against the back of his throat, triggering Ashton's gag reflex. On the reflex, as Ashton's eyes began to water and reddened at the brim, whilst Luke's eyes were rolling into the back of his head with the pleasurable vibrations that traveled up his throbbing length and shook his being.

"Ashton," Luke's breathed with that delicious groan, "fuck, I - pull off. Pull off." He pulled at Ashton's hair, dethatching from his fully hardened member.

Obeying to his command, Ashton's lips were no longer around Luke, the only warmth brought to Luke being the hot water cascading down his body. Ashton's lips looked so red and abused, his own saliva beginning to trickle down his lower lip as the water from the shower head continued to pour down on his skin relentlessly. He stood up, meeting with Luke's eyes once more. His hands reached out and took Luke's flushed face into his palms, his thumbs brushing against his cheekbones.

Dipping slightly downward, Ashton pressed a small and feeble kiss to the blonde's lips. Once having parted, Luke immediately dove in for more of the taste of Ashton's enticing pair of lips. It was just like how they started, their eyelids fluttered closed as their lips lazily moved against one another - both in perfect sync. Luke's hands began to wander, traveling down Ashton's slim waist to the small dip of where his v-lines are located.

Luke almost shivered at the touch, but he soon reminded himself the purpose of deliberately tracing his fingers down to a lower level on Ashton's body. With the thought in mind, Luke gently grazed over Ashton's semi-hard member, tentatively wrapping his fingers around him.

Ashton sucked in a sudden batch of air, filling his lungs to the brim and letting a long and quivering sigh exit from his agape lips. A smile twitched at the corners of his lips as Luke handled him a bit too carefully. As his lover gave him a few sluggish stokes, Ashton began to grow impatient, causing for him to plant his hands on both sides of Luke's head. Ashton positioned himself and moves forward, pressing his hips against Luke's without any hesitation.

Luke's hand automatically fell as Ashton began to roll his hips, their pulsating and hardened lengths brushing against each other. Luke's hands found their way to Ashton's shoulders, his dull fingernails digging small crescent indentations into his smooth skin. Ashton hissed slightly at the uncomfortable stinging sensation of his opened flesh being splashed with the hot water pouring onto them, but it soon became overwhelmed by the pleasure that was coiling in the pit of his abdomen.

Luke's breathing resulted to shallow panting, his eyelids clamped shut as they both ground their hips together, gradually building up their upcoming climaxes. Ashton's breathing, however, was heavy and somewhat aggressive on contrast to Luke's. With the euphoria becoming the only thing to focus on, he found his hips rolling against Luke's at a faster pace, desperately working up his high.

Luke's muscles twitched, his breathing hitched. He drew out a filthy groan, never holding back as he released. Thick streams of white ribbons flew against the water that streamed over him, his semen smearing across Ashton's thickened length. The tip was swollen and red, desperately craving for a release.

His lover's high only encouraged his release closer. Only seconds later did Ashton release his load in between Luke and him, the liquid being washed away as the water fell in fluent streams down their bodies. Their breathing began to slow down as they caught their normal breathing pattern.

Grabbing the short hairs at the back of Luke's neck, Ashton brought their lips together for another up-lifting and long kiss. They never moved their lips. They just kept their lips pressed against each other, soaking in the warmth of the other's. Eventually they parted, exchanging a broad and muscle-aching smile.

"God, I fucking love you." Luke breathes, chuckling slightly as Ashton pinches at his side playfully. Ashton could have sworn he felt his heart expand from the utter adoration he holds for such a beautiful human being.

~|~

To say that they were exhausted would be one hell of an understatement Luke had collapsed onto the bed, absolutely gutted, almost immediately after drying and dressing himself upon stepping out from the steaming shower. Ashton had noticed the way his lover's eyelids seemed to grow heavier as the time past, how his posture slumped and how his words were cut a bit short whenever Ashton would ask how he was feeling. The way Luke felt, drained, was written all over.

To prevent Luke from collapsing to the floor, Ashton insisted for him to slip into bed while he was dressing and prepping for bed. Luke had tried pulling him to bed, but Ashton insistently claimed that he didn't like dampening the pillows with his wet head of hair. If he had the instantaneous power to dry off, he would if it meant sliding into bed with the blonde boy. His electric blue eyes were tempting, he had to admit. They had some kind of hold on him.

Despite the fact that he wanted to snuggle up against Ashton's chest, Luke didn't protest any longer. Sleep lured him into the bedroom. He made himself at home underneath their bed covers, wrapping the duvet securely around him to shield himself from the chilly evening air that whirled in through the cracked window. He didn't remember opening it, but didn't think much of it with his clouded thoughts whispering words of sleep into his ears. He snuggled himself into one of the many pillows stacked by the headboard, Luke's eyelids fluttering to a peaceful close.

Ashton was stalking his way out from the bathroom, connected to their bedroom. Some clouds of steam still began drifting out from the bathroom, condensation wetting the tiled walls. He halts at the doorway, and in that moment  he watches Luke make himself comfortable underneath the sheets, nearly tucking his face away into the mess of blankets and soft pillows. A broad smile slowly made its way onto Ashton's rosy lips, exposing his brilliant row of teeth, dimples indenting into the soft flesh of his cheeks.

"Did you fall asleep on me yet, Hemmings?" Ashton asks from the doorway before he began to pad his way across the wooden flooring to the bed.

The dead-eyed boy lets out a low hum in a lazy response, refusing to let his eyelids crack open. His exhaustion was so heavy that Ashton began to felt the fatigue by simply looking at his lover fold himself into the plush comforts of the bed. Ashton crawled under the covers after prying some of the blankets away from Luke, snuggling up against the worn out boy before him, cherishing in his radiating body heat.

Luke sensed the warmth of Ashton's body in the bed with him, his eyes instantly peering open to gaze at the gorgeous boy nestled beside him. A small smile twitched at the corners of Luke's lips, showcasing his top row of perfectly whitened teeth. He nibbled down onto the cool metal of his ring adorning his lower lip, scrambling in the bed to cuddle in farther towards Ashton's chest. He wants to look at him without craning his neck in the opposite direction.

"I'm sorry," Luke mumbles, his smile slowly fading from his pair of perfectly succulent lips. "I'm sorry for making a stupid and perfectly avoidable mistake and making you upset." Luke's hands reached outward and grabbed at Ashton's shirt, drawing him in closer to him. His fingers wandered over the bare skin by Ashton's collarbones.

Ashton's breath inward catches in his throat, causing for his brow to furrow heavily. "I do have to say that that was a pretty stupid mistake. Goddamn, Luke." A heavy sigh left his lips as he let his head flop down and sink into the plush material of the pillow below him. "That really makes me uneasy."

Luke lets his head lay on Ashton's chest, his ear pressed up against the area where his heart should be. He let a few seconds of silence pass, listening to Ashton's steady heartbeat thump against his ribcage. "I know," he mutters, his voice holding no real emotion as the two words came effortlessly out from his mouth. The thought of their argument made him feel numb.

On instinct, Ashton's arms wrapped securely around Luke's lean body as he gazed up blankly at the white ceiling above them. The lamp that sat on their nightstand acted as the only source of light, the weak yellow-tinted glow lighting the room as they huddled close together. Their body warmth, together, grew in between one another. While Ashton's hand lowered down towards the end of Luke's back, he hummed a small tune written between him, Luke, and the other lads. His fingers gently lifted up the cotton shirt to reveal the skin of Luke's back, his fingertips pressing lightly and grazing across the area of skin. It was so enticing to his touch.

_You know something I don't, it's not like you to be cold..._

"Ash." Luke murmured his name, snapping him out of his gentle murmur of lyrics. Ashton tilted his head downward, locking eyes with Luke's. Ashton quirks an eyebrow up in his direction, tilting his head slightly to the side as he watched Luke shuffle for comfort in his spot. His pulls an adoring smile back onto his lips.

The blonde boy eventually was sitting up with one of hands lying flat on the planes of Ashton's firm chest. He gazed down at Ashton, his dampened chunks of messy blonde falling over his eyes and some strands sticking to his forehead. He leans down, pressing his warm lips against Ashton's warm forehead, the sweet kiss lingering against his sun-kissed skin. Having decided a few seconds was enough, Luke parted his lips away from Ashton's warm forehead and stared down lovingly at him, the way he does when he takes a moment to himself and realize how thankful he is.

Ashton lets out a breathy laugh, one of his hands resting on top of Luke's that still pressed against his chest. His thumb ran over the gentle hills of Luke's knuckles, soothing over the thin skin and bringing a warm sensation into Luke's heart. He gazed up at Luke in awe, dumbstruck by how beautiful this boy is and how damned lucky he is to possibly have a person like him in his life.The thought never ceases to amaze him.

"You were saying something?" Ashton says softly, his eyes flickering over Luke's face as he searches for some sort of facial expression.

Luke leans down once more, letting the tips of their noses graze against one another in an affection, a motion often done between them. Ashton's eyelids drifted to a close, Luke's eyes following in sync to close. They leaned in, their lips pressing and molding against one another. They parted their lips and moved together in a languid manner, tongues grazing gently across their bottom lips, Ashton's catching at Luke's ring. Ashton's thumb continued to deliver calming strokes to Luke's knuckles as Luke's free hand pulled through Ashton's head of brown waves, soft and still slightly damp.

The kiss was never rushed and no further pressure was added. It remained delicate as though they were afraid of making the other crumble into small shattered pieces - as if they were made from the fragile china porcelain. Having wanted to deliver an important message to Ashton, Luke parted away from the kiss.

Their eyelids cracked open on command, hazel automatically locking with an ocean blue. Small smiles tugged at their lips as they stared lovingly at one another, enjoying the moment of being in front of one another. Luke gave a content sigh as he began to sink back into the bed, retracting his hand from Ashton's hair. He let his other hand stay in it's spot, splayed out on Ashton's chest, his index and middle finger absentmindedly drumming against his chest.

"I love you," Luke whispers to Ashton, his lips ghosting over the shell of his ear. "I don't want to do anything else to sabotage our relationship. I don't to get into more fights than we already do."

Ashton nods slowly in understanding. "I know, Luke." He wraps his free arm around Luke and pulls the boy into him once again. "I love you, and I am willing to do everything to make sure that we're happy together." He presses another reassuring kiss to his forehead.


	2. This Loneliness is Haunting Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I edited the very end of the first chapter. It doesn't really matter if you read it or not, but if you want, it's there and then you can read this chapter. (:  
> Just a warning: Lots of mention of drugs in this chapter. If it makes you uncomfortable, read at your own risk.

Ashton's boiling temper has been a touchy subject that shouldn't be tampered with, so Luke chooses to avoid it all he can, even though it should be highly disapproved. Confrontation felt like it would end in a chaotic brawl. However, Luke has been pickier about things, easily finding perfect conflict with Ashton's edgy rage. Within a fair distance of each other, it normally breaks out into some useless argument. It's becoming more normal for them than it should.

The months have been dragged over sharp gravel, beaten down, and then, finally, their first milestone had been broken through – not like they had celebrated. The day of their one year resulted in a fight that had them shouting across the room until their faces blew red with rage over Ashton leaving his things lying around the house. A child’s mess, as Luke had screamed. In Luke's argument, Ashton refuses to pick up after himself, treating him like some sort of maid to take up after him. In a sharp reply to justify himself, Ashton proclaims Luke is acting more like his mother rather than his boyfriend. Bluntly, it had ended in Ashton talking a walk around the block of the neighborhood while Luke cleaned up Ashton's said mess.

The said fight is overdue now, and it has been a week after Ashton and Luke finally broke their relationship through their ‘celebratory’ one-year milestone. Everything became more complicated for the both of them, all at fault because of their insistent stream of disagreements that mercilessly erupt between them over the course of the days. The problem more so occurring to Luke's thoughts, they are not showing any signs of cease fire. As only more disputes began to evolve and appear at random, more stress expanding and growing heavily on the both of their shoulders. It was progressing until their tolerance for stress was beginning to falter and spill at the seams.

Ashton had even insisted he would sleep on the couch one night, staring blankly at the dark television screen as he nestled himself in the worn cushions.

Ashton was the first of the two of them to find his own resolution to mask the hidden pain inside of him. He's not one for revealing his inner thoughts as much, as he has always felt like he must take the role of fathering his little friend group. He tends to keep most secrets to himself now that he and Luke are growing distant of one another. He hasn't even spoken to the other boys for an extended period of time. In another setting, Calum and Michael worried but allowed the space.

He hid all of his dark ways from Luke, not so daring to approach him about how he's crumbling and losing his faith in each other. He began unhealthy habits to keep himself occupied, to make his daily life drift by without so much strain. It was to push his thoughts away from the painful concept that his relationship with the young blonde boy with the captivating electric eyes, the one he is desperately in love with, is becoming more so a dream. An illusive dream.

He felt as though these fights were going to be too much for Luke one day and he'd walk out the door and ignore his presence for as long as they're both breathing. It's happened, mid-way in their relationship where Luke needed a break. Ashton had convinced himself that he permanently lost Luke then. He thought he had lost sight of the boy that he's known for years, and fell into an unfathomable connection with. The thought of parting with Luke scares him, and his new habits lessen his anxiety about the fear of losing him. He's scared that their relationship is nothing but toxic, and that they have to part for the better of themselves.

Having made many connections through the infamously dark side of the neighborhood, Ashton located and started paying a certain individual for illegal substances and injects them daily into his body. Apparently his busser (as they called the people who delivered) was only an employee of a much larger company. The size of the business is much larger than any mind would apprehend. Not that Ashton cared; he only cared that he got what he was paying for.

At first, the dark scenery of downtown made his skin crawl. Standing by the front of sketchy bar filled with bikers, he felt like glowing eyes were following him. One wrong move, he told himself, and you’re dead meat to the vicious eyes hiding in the murky shadows of alleyways. The smell of burnt nicotine was strong in the air, dampened by the moisture in the air from previous rainfall. When his shoulder was rammed against by another, he thought he was done for.

Mysterious eyes hidden beneath the visor of a cap followed him as the man murmured for the money. The exchange was quick, painless, and he escaped the looks of the hungry eyes of creeping punks unscathed. He disappeared off into the night quickly after the exchange. He convinced himself that he could get used to it.

Since then, he has been relying on the high that heroin brings him so that he can push through the hurdles of his relationship. It’s a cowardly move, he admits to himself, but instead of solving for an appropriate solution, he carries on. The substance has hooked him. He never liked to admit it to himself, but he was avoiding his problems and was beginning new ones.

The first try brought him great discomfort as he tightly wrapped one of his worn bandanas around his toned bicep. The darkness of the night in the middle of an abandoned parking lot brought him some relief that there were no wandering eyes following him. His prominent veins made his stomach churn, small hills on the surface of his skin. Ashton had never been a fan of needles as they had always haunted him since childhood, but he couldn’t look away. He had a fear of poking somewhere that could potentially lead him in the hospital. Once the venom was injected and thrived through his veins, his muscles instantaneously relaxed and slouched his body against the car seat.

He was directly attached to the drug like it was his life source.

With this growing habit thriving, Ashton's behavior began to change dramatically right before Luke's very eyes. These sudden changes in Ashton's normally cheerful behavior smacked Luke straight across the face, making reality become too real to him. He knew that Ashton was gradually developing an entirely new attitude towards everything around him.

Luke was taking notice in his lover's lack of interest in music as the time passed by, one of the most major differences in his attitude. It made Luke stumble, rethinking everything through until he had to conclude that Ashton’s love for music is truly dying out, much to his despair. Ashton was beginning to bail on the get-togethers that Luke and the other lads would arrange for rehearsals. He always made up some lousy excuse from the top of his head in order to dismiss himself from being around the three of them. It sent a surge of emotional pain to the boys, but most definitely Luke.

He didn't attend any of the band rehearsals or song writing sessions, and they desperately needed their drummer. Ashton was the heart of their group.

It also seemed as though Ashton was hardly acknowledging Luke's presence anymore. He was never exchanging eye contact with him, or asking how his day was like he normally does over their evening dinner. It didn't matter if Luke was trying to communicate with him or if he just wanted to gaze into his eyes in hope to see that small glimmer of happiness. Ashton just wasn't there.

Ashton's eyes fell from their usual vibrancy of hazel, his pupils seeming to grow smaller as he absentmindedly taps his fingers on a hard surface or his lap. He never stopped twitching. He will always be moving one of his limbs whether it was his leg, foot, or just his fingers. He could never sit still in one place.

Ashton began to grow careless of his hygiene, his disregardful actions effecting his physical presentation and making him look older than he already is. Knowing that Ashton had a grudge against his stubble growing for long, Luke was surprised to find a thickening layer of stubble peppered across Ashton's chiseled jaw and chin. His hair grew wilder as Ashton never found the energy or the point in wrapping a bandana around his head to secure his messy head of ringlets. His curls began falling over his eyes, concealing the darkness that began enveloping his warm irises. Luke thought that Ashton loved those bandanas.

His expressions also come off to be quite droopy now, some of his actions appearing slower than normal, such as the pace of which he walks in.

Ashton found himself at peace whenever he was floating in his mesmerizing high, sitting back and soaking in the warm and airy feeling of his head spinning and his nerves tingling. He would have a smile constantly implanted on his lips if it weren't for Luke's seemingly irritating voice bickering at him from a distance, asking if he was listening or if he could do a simple chore. Luke was so oblivious, because he thought nothing of it other than he was blocking out sounds now, too.

Time into using the drugs, with Luke's commands, Ashton began to rely on the dust a lot heavier than he ever had before. Abuse, he guessed it would be called. Whenever he was left with a slight buzz, Ashton would scramble and find his stash of pocketed heroin powder to refill his body with the sinful pleasure that the drug gave him upon injection. He would mentally admit to himself that his mouth came off to be a bit more dry and he trailed off into thought a bit too often, but the euphoria that the drug brought him made it seem all worth the trouble that it was actually bringing.

Ashton found new people to spend his time with, people who regularly roam around the dark and mistreated streets downtown. His new surrounding of people resulted into him avoiding coming home at any given time before Luke falls asleep. He would stay at his secretive place until the early hours of the morning, just drinking and explaining how heroine was doing some good to him to other people who felt the same way about the drug. Like it was some passageway to peace.

Ashton became content with these people and somewhat happy, not because they cared about him, but because they always agreed with him as he explained how the drug seemed to make his worries and problems so small. He didn't know it, but his doings are becoming unhealthier for his body, wellbeing, relationships, and his actions are beginning to sabotage his and Luke's relationship, worse than before, if it were possible.

Luke was always at home, lying in bed in the dark while he hopes for Ashton to return home and to snuggle him for body heat until he falls into a deep sleep. Ever since Ashton's nasty habits grew almost resilient, Luke felt lonelier. Life began to make him feel that he was the only one between the two who was giving a damn, who was trying to sew up their devastating relationship. With every hour that stretched into the night came Luke's exhaustion and his sadness. It was all piling rapidly onto his shoulders until sleep forcefully lulled him into dreaming about the Ashton he had once fallen in love with, and nightmares about the person that Ashton has become.

Ashton evolved into an entirely different person, and whenever Luke tried to look this person in the eye, he feels like that he's looking into the eyes of a stranger whom never seemed to have given a single shit about Luke's wellbeing. Having noticed the growing distance between him and Ashton, Luke became determined to find out for himself as to why he never spoke to him anymore. He wants to know what has changed with Ashton to make him avoid him like he’s some form of plague.

Were their fights really that appalling that Ashton wanted to have as much space between them as possible?

Did Ashton want to put a stop to their relationship and continue forward with his life?

Did he just not have the right words to say to Luke and was waiting for the right moment to come by?

Luke wasn't very positive about the answers to his endless lines of questions about Ashton's sudden changes, but he was unwavering to find out for himself. Regardless of the method that Ashton might use to disconnect their relationship, Luke was becoming far too anxious and has no desire to avoid him any longer. The problem has been hanging over his head for the longest time, and his patience has worn thin.

Luke became very determined and had almost convinced himself entirely that he wasn't going to lose the love of his life so easily. He was going to dig deeper and to find the heart of Ashton's problem other than their rough patch in their relationship itself.

Luke took advantage of Ashton's absence one night, scrambling out from underneath their warm duvet and bunched them at the foot of the bed, the covers nearly spilling to the floor. He glanced to his side, frowning lightly at the empty space on Ashton's claimed side of the bed. Empty, lonely, lifeless. He ran his fingers over the hills across the sheets, cringing slightly at the cool fabric underneath his fingertips. They showed no warmth, and that made Luke's skin crawl with discomfort. He wanted to feel the heat of Ashton's body, when the warmth traveled to the sheets themselves.

Shaking his head and tossing away any distracting thoughts, Luke retracted his hand away from the bed sheets and laid his sweaty palms on his knees as he took a few heavy breaths to steady himself. He let his teeth gnaw into the flesh of his lower lip, his heart thudding erratically within his chest, blood rushing to the surface of his cheeks.

His eyes glanced to the alarm that sat on the nightstand beside him, staring blankly at the atomic clock in its fiery red numbers. Reading the time as 11:57pm, Luke figured that Ashton wouldn't be returning home anytime soon. Not for another few hours at the least. It was always in the dead of night when all you would hear are the crickets chirping into the evening.

Swinging his legs over on the side of the bed, Luke slid off from the mattress and steadied himself before stumbling through the dark in effort to locate the wall and find the light switch by the bedroom door.

After blindly reaching is arms out through the blackness, Luke finally located the doorframe and flicked the switch up, the room being illuminated with a piercing bright light. Luke's eyes squinted as he gazed across the room, his aching eyes slowly beginning to adjust to the sudden change from darkness to a startling bright light.

He wasn't sure about where to start investigating in the bedroom. Luke was assuming that if Ashton's behavior was so drastically changed that _something_ or _someone_ had to have done it. He can safely assume that he could start off by scavenging through Ashton's belongings so find some small hint of what Ashton was keeping hidden from him. He felt like he was intruding in a lot of Ashton's privacy, but his desperation of digging out what he was concealing is making Luke twitch of curiosity.

Luke came to the decision of examining all drawers and the closet. Paranoid that Ashton will be walking through the door any minute asking what in the name of hell what he was doing, Luke quickly made his way towards the closet, sliding open the doors and filing through the line of clothing hung on cheap plastic hangers, feeling through all of Ashton's sweater and shirt pockets. He found nothing.

Reaching up to the shelf holding all of their messily folded jeans, Luke patted through the pile and found nothing. He sighed in defeat and slid the doors back to their close.

He hastily made his way across the room towards the nightstand, pulling open the drawer. Because of their messy character, Ashton and Luke often throw small belongings in the drawer. Most items held in the drawer were forgotten about, never to be taken out. Luke cringed when he drew open the drawer and saw an assortment of different objects, noting to himself that he should probably be cleaning places like his out and to not hoard things that bring no need to neither of the boys.

He reached in, moving all different bits and pieces of things out to thoroughly look through all corners of the drawer. He growled in defeat as he - once more - found nothing that brought no good use to his search. Luke slammed the drawer to a close with a bit more force than what was necessary. He licked at his lips absentmindedly, swiftly jogging out into the hallway and opening the door into one of the spare guest bedrooms that they used to hold their instruments in.

Flicking on the light to the spare room, Luke glanced around, observing his various guitars hung along the walls, collected over the years of playing. Some of the paint were worn down their wooden bodies, but a couple shimmered from their glossy finishing coats. Ashton's drum set was settled in the corner, looking untouched, as dust began settling on top of it.

Luke's eyes narrowed at the sight of the drums, frowning upon the thought of Ashton never finding the time or will to practice on his skins like he did before, dedicating his entire being to it. It was a shame, really. Ashton has been playing the drums for a reason, and he suddenly dropped the hobby - his _job_ \- because of this other unknown reason that Luke was helplessly searching for. Ashton shined brightly on his instrument, especially for as long as he played. He blew people away with his untouchable talent.

Now it was thrown away like some piece of useless garbage.

Luke internally growled at the thought of Ashton quitting their beloved band and trudged towards the drum set, kneeling down onto his knees as he delivers a firm tap to each of the drums with his knuckles. The drum heads were black and nearly impossible to see through. There could be a possibility something was intelligently hidden inside, although the work to do so made it sound silly.

With each tap, there was no rattle of any foreign object hidden inside of them. Luke, head thumping with aggravation, nearly screamed out into the emptiness of their home, immediately standing himself back up onto the flats of his feet. Luke let the pads of his fingertips glide across the brass of the crash symbol, quickly retracting his hand as he snapped himself into reality. Marks of his fingers grazing across the dusty cymbal marked his presence.

Inside, Luke wanted to trash Ashton’s set – maybe then he’s pay attention. Maybe he would show some sort of connection with the world if the most precious object he has was sabotaged. He refrains himself, however, and reminds himself that it wouldn’t solve anything. Don’t feed the fire with gasoline.

He quickly dashed out from the room after flicking off the light and slamming the door to its original closing, putting the abandoned drum set back into the saddening darkness it’s constantly enveloped in. With his frustration rising to the very brim, Luke was scurrying through the house with extreme anxiety. He was unwavering now, and was going to find the source of his boyfriend's sudden changes even if it was going to be the last thing he could do. He will put an end to this madness.

Luke checked every surface, every nook, and every cranny. Despite is major attempts in trying to find a small clue, his hand came clean and he couldn't find the slightest bit of evidence no matter the extreme of his efforts. He collapsed back down on is bed, his clammy hands running down his face in defeat.

"I just want him back," Luke sobs into his sweaty palms, his eyes pinching to a tight close.

Luke’s words floated out into the air, drifting away, never to be heard by the one who needs to hear them most. His face scrunched up, nose crinkling and eyebrows furrowing as rounds of sobs racked throughout his body, taking over his body and infesting his thoughts with painfully sweet past memories of the old Ashton that Luke came to fall in love with.

As much as he didn't want to admit it, Luke had lost him and he was beginning to partially blame himself. Where has he gone wrong to make Ashton so unhappy?

He wasn't exactly positive about whether the many brawls were ignited only by him, because Ashton has a tendency to do some irrational things when stubborn, but he knew that the guilt was beginning to eat him from the inside out. He wanted to scream in hopes that the pain would escape him that way, but he knew that no matter how much he begged and shouted at the top of his lungs that he could never win back his old Ashton Irwin.

Luke forced himself to sit up, his lower lip trembling as he did so. Tears painted their ways down his flushed cheeks, catching at his chin and falling down in droplets. His hand clasped tightly over his mouth in effort to muffle his falling sobs, tears continuing to prickle in his red-trimmed eyes, welling until his entire vision grew glossy and unreliable.

Blinking them away, his tears fell down the flushed and blotchy skin on his cheeks, his fingers quivering as his heart throbbed painfully within the tight boundaries of his chest. He wanted to end the pain, for Ashton to embrace him again and tell him how much he loves him and to remind him of the stupid things that they have done that left a mark and a memory in their relationship. He wanted to be held in his arms again so he could be reassured that their relationship will work. Everything that is meant to be works out.

Deciding to splash his face with a handful of cold water to find his grounding, Luke forced himself to slide off the bed and to wobble towards the bathroom. His knees shook underneath his weight, giving Luke great difficulty to simply stroll into the bathroom in his crumbled condition. He shivered as his bare feet padded across the cool tile flooring, his teeth jittering together from the chills that washed over his skin. He flicked on the light and leaned on the bowl of the sink, his figure hunched over as he tried to silence the sobs that mercilessly fell from his trembling lips.

He reached out and turned on the faucet, watching with bloodshot eyes as the cold water fell. He cupped his shaking hands underneath the falling water, building up a small pond in the palms of his hands.

Once content with the amount of water captured, he splashed the cold and brisk liquid across his heated and flushed face, shivers running down his back in waves of electricity. He blindly reached out for the hand towel as droplets of water fell from his chin, the tip of his nose, and some of his dampened pieces of hair. Once he located the towel, he took it into his own hands and dabbed at his face, drying himself from all of the cold water.

As he hung the small hand towel back, a small shimmer of light caught his attention from the corner of his eye. He turned his head slowly, cocking his head to the side as his eyes land on a small sliver of silver lying on the sink beside the cold water handle. He reached out, taking the small piece of metal in between his index finger and thumb. He frowned, identifying the piece of metal as a needle.

"What the hell?" He spoke softly to himself, his voice hoarse and dry.

Luke knew for sure that he never had needles kept within the house. He presumed that it belonged to Ashton. Lying the needle back down on the sink, he took the medicine cabinet handle into hand and swung the door open. Luke was taken aback at the sight before him, his eyes widening and nearly bulging from their sockets.

When Luke saw what exactly was lying on the shelves of the medicine cabinet, he felt sick to his stomach, the urge to empty out all of the remaining contents in his stomach grabbing a hold of him by the throat. He wasn't very positive about how he should react to the scene before him, but he knew that his growing anxiety was beginning to get the best of him. Taking slow steps backwards, he couldn't seem to believe his own eyes.

Syringes and spoons were lying on one of the three shelves, scattered haphazardly as though whoever placed them there was in quite a hurry. It couldn’t be anyone else but Ashton. On a shelf below them, there sat small plastic packets covered with a white dust, some partially filled and others almost completely bare of whatever drug it was holding. How could he be so blunt about hiding his stash?

Luke's eyebrows furrowed so heavily to the point of where they nearly connected in the middle. Luke began rubbing his index and middle fingers in tight circles on his temples in hopes of brushing off the immense pressure that was building within his skull. He felt insane.

He cannot seem to wrap his mind around the fact that Ashton was getting himself involved with an illegal business by purchasing forbidden drugs from a dealer in town. The more Luke began to think all of this through, the more did he begin to question his vision. He wanted to persuade himself to believe that this is all a misunderstanding and that whatever is piled along the shelves of the medicine cabinet are nothing along the lines of dangerous and felonious.

Luke clutched at his stomach, fingers curling into his sides in fright of getting sick. His imagination began swirling as he pictured Ashton being dragged away from him, police lights piercing through the night and sirens wailing in his front lawn, cops cuffing Ashton as he struggled beneath their iron grip. The police men performed their ritual-like speech and shoved him into the backseat of a police car. “You have the right to remain silent…”

Tears prickled at the corners of his eyes once more as his emotions began to bubble and well up inside. Luke swallowed thickly, blinking past the fog in his eyes.

He was suddenly pulled away from his thoughts when the front door slamming shut echoed throughout the thin walls of the house, signaling Ashton’s arrival in the early hours of the morning. He sound echoed through his pounding skull. He could almost feel the house rattling through his feet.

Knowing of Ashton arrival only triggered another path of tears to stream in paths down Luke's cheeks, his heart clenching in his chest. He slammed his clenched fist against the hard tile bathroom wall, a long line of swears falling from his lips in a manner that would be futile to his mother’s ears.

As the footsteps drew closer, Luke's emotions only grew in strength, his anger winning out of all others. As Ashton was approaching their bedroom at his normal calm pace, Luke's fury began to well up within himself, his cheeks hot and shoulders tense. Both of his palms dampened with anxious sweat, Luke reached into the medicine cabinet and grasped onto all of the small plastic packages, regardless whether they were filled or not. Some of the powder dusted on his hands.

He trudged out from the bathroom and immediately slips into the bedroom. That’s when Luke's eyes locked onto Ashton’s back as he kicked off his shoes by the closet. With heavy eyelids, Luke watched as Ashton slid his arms out from his jacket and tossed the article of clothing elsewhere in the room. Luke's nostrils flared at the sight of him, his jaw clenching tightly, his teeth beginning to ache from the immense pressure.

"Why the fuck would you do this, Ashton?" Luke seethed, his words straining from between his set of grit teeth. "Why the hell do you have  _heroin_  stocked in the medicine cabinet?"

Ashton whipped around on his heels, his eyes widening in shock of the accusation Luke had made. His eyes narrowed then as he watched Luke tightly grasping onto the packages of the substance that, he was indeed, relying on most.

"Put it away, Luke." Ashton's words were as equally as cold and hard as Luke's, possibly just the slightest bit more. His eyes darkened, nostrils flaring and jaw tightening at sight.

Luke scoffs, rolling his eyes dramatically. "Are you kidding me, Ashton?” Emotion nearly bubbles up in his throat. He swallows it down, and continues his stab. “Why won't you ever come to me and tell me what is upsetting you instead of injecting his shit into your body? Do you know the things that it can do to you?" Luke chose to ignore the tenseness that took over Ashton, his breathing much more shallow and noticeable.

Closing space in between them, Ashton braced his arm behind. He never took time to apply much thought into what he was about to commit – of what might result – the consequences. Gathering all of the possible strength he could muster in his arm, Ashton raised his hand back and whipped it across Luke's face with a great amount of force. Time felt slow, Luke’s heart jumping in his throat. His movements were too slow.

The crack of skin smacking against skin echoed off the walls from around them, leaving them both in utter silence as they both tried to figure out what had just happened.

Luke had stumbled backward, blinking his eyelids rapidly as he tried to gather his thinking processes. The awful stinging sensation flowed throughout his cheek, spreading heat and pain throughout his entire head, feeding his headache. A red mark was left on the soft flesh of Luke's cheek, clearly marked as Ashton's hand print.

Ashton wiggled his fingers at his side as he tried to get rid of the stinging sensation throughout the palm of his hand, his dark eyes locking on Luke's astonished expression. His glare softens, jaw slacked from shock that he would have raised a hand against someone who he should love.

"What the fuck," Luke's voice cracked, his eyes glossing with tears as another unbearable wave of pain flowed through the space of Luke's body - emotional pain that made him want to double over and fall to the floor. His eyes tentatively met with Ashton's, his lower lip quivering and his fingers trembling. Ashton was never the kind of person who would even dare raise his hand against another. It’s so out of character that Luke was persuades, just for a second, that it was someone else. But he blinks, and an astonished Ashton is still standing there, speechless.

All of this had to digest for a minute in silence in order for Ashton to understand what he had just done. He had never been physically abusive towards anyone, especially towards a particularly close person such as Luke. He’s too pure.

Ashton splayed out his fingers in front of himself, looking down at the palm of his hand as it reddened and thumped with throbbing sensation that dominantly took over all sensations in his hand. His mouth gaped for a moment, opening and closing as he tries to find the words he wants to say.

Luke took the packets of heroin and shoved them to Ashton’s chest, making sure to ram his shoulder harshly against his as he walked passed Ashton with fury pulsating furiously throughout his body. He swiftly moved throughout the room, sliding open the doors of the closet and taking out one of his few jackets from the plastic hanger.

Shrugging the jacket onto his shoulders, he hastily slipped his feet into a pair of shoes without bothering to tie the laces, allowing them to hang loose without a care of tripping. He walked out from the room and padded down the stairs towards the front door.

Ashton stood there in the same spot, his muscles refusing to move. He  _couldn't_  move. It was like his muscles solidified to stone, as if he were a statue.

As he nears the front door, Luke takes his car keys off from its hook and unplugs his mobile from its charging dock, sliding it into his front pocket. He turns, blinking away a wall of tears as he takes in another look of the house before him, dark and only illuminated by the moonlight pouring out from the open windows.

Luke shakes his head in a mixture of disappointment and disbelief, his heart falling into his stomach as he swings the door open and steps out, never looking back.

~|~

Luke had himself lying back in his car seat as he tried to gather up a fair exclamation as to why he was parked outside of Calum and Michael's apartment building at one in the morning. No matter how hard he scraped through his skull for a proper excuse, he couldn't seem to whizz one up from the tips of his fingers. Nothing that wouldn’t have them questioning.

He was with himself confused as to what exactly he was doing, but he knew for one thing that he needed some company that is sure to greet him with open arms. Michael and Calum had to be the solution for his momentary troubles. He needed a shoulder to weep into and let out his inner feelings.

Luke hasn’t been sure as to what it feels like to be appreciated or treated with respect for weeks now, and he's hoping that spending some quality time in the early hours in the morning with Calum and Michael will help rise his spirits. They manage to do so any other time, so he can’t find an excuse as to why they couldn’t now.

He sighs to himself as he realizes how absurd it sounded as he spoke it quietly to himself. Before he was going to take second thoughts on this, Luke quickly shuffles around and slides his phone out from the pocket of his baggy joggers, waking the screen. As the screen came to life, Luke's eyes squinted at the splintering brightness, scrolling through his contacts until he finally located Calum's name. Michael is a heavy sleeper, as Luke came to learn throughout the years.

Tapping on his name and dialing his number, Luke presses his speaker against his ear as he patiently listens to the ongoing rings in hope that Calum didn't have his mobile on silent for anything of such. He sighed in relief as one of the few first rings where cut off from in the middle, and Luke was speaking directly with Calum.

Some shuffling sounded through the other side of the phone, and soon Calum's early morning voice croaked, "Luke? Why are you calling me at one in the morning?" He hummed slightly at the end, his voice thick and groggy with heavy sleep.

Luke bit at his lower lip, composing the emotion that welled in his throat. It was too early to break down. He had to keep his cool until he finds himself in the comforts of their room.

"Calum," Luke began, taking in a sharp intake of air before his eyes pinch closed. He exhaled in effort to keep himself collected, feeling a lump form in the midst of his throat for what feels like the hundredth time. "I need to talk to you and Mike. I just really need to talk.”

"What's wrong, Luke?" Calum asked, seeming more alert as of now. "What happened? Are you hurt?”

Luke shook his head although he knew that the boy wasn't able to see him. "No, Cal.” He stares out into the black night, eyes gazing at the star-speckled sky. It gave him temporary peace. “Something happened at home... I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight if I don't talk to you and Mike." Luke's voice began to betray him, sadness seeping to his words and easily becoming audible to Calum's ears.

More shuffling sounded from Calum's line. Luke assumed as he was trying to scramble out from bed. Calum had clearly been worried about the tone in Luke's voice. "Hold on, buddy. I'm going to drive over and wake Mikey up so-,"

"No need," Luke's fragile voice interrupted. He murmured a small apology before continuing, "I'm parked outside. I'd really appreciate it if you could call Michael, though. It's better to have the both of you to talk to." Luke's eyes fell to his lap, balancing his phone in between his ear and shoulder as he began to pick underneath his nails.

"Oh," Calum breathed. "Well... Come on up, then. I'll call Michael so that he can head on over. The door will be open for you so don't hesitate to just walk in. I'll make some tea, yeah? How does that sound?" The more he spoke, the more it seemed that the velvety sound fell from Calum's words. "I'll see you real soon, Luke."

Before Luke even had the chance to thank his best friend or to even murmur a small goodbye, Calum had ended the call and Luke was left there in another fit of uncomfortable fit lonely silence. It haunted him, nowadays. The silence ate away at his sanity, his hopes, and his wishes. He had been left with nothing.

One of Luke's hands reach up and grasps onto his phone, closing the screen. He keeps sniffling to prevent his nose from running, the excessive crying beforehand having taken a toll on his body. He was already becoming an emotional wreck and he hasn't even met Calum and Michael face-to-face yet.

He slid his phone back into his front pocket, running his hands through his rat nest of hair, scratching at his scalp as he look in slow and even breaths to soothe down his breathing and to calm his erratic heartbeat. Once he had properly composed himself, Luke unlocked the doors and swung open his car door, sliding out from his Volkswagen Phaeton. He was leaning on the hood of the car, unable to rely on his trembling knees as they continued to wobble underneath his weight.

Luke's hand raised up, his fingertips grazing against the hot and sensitive area on his cheek of which Ashton's hand collided with. He flinched at the touch, the area of skin becoming sensitive to a ghosting finger over the expanse of Ashton’s hand mark.

To this point of sensitivity in the region of contact, Ashton assumed that Ashton’s hands either broke skin or a large bruise was beginning to swell up. Luke was dreading the moment that Michael and Calum discover the mark that had been made on his skin.

Luke braced himself by taking another heavy breath in, slamming his car door closed and locking it before he began to stride towards the apartment complex. He knew his way through the building like the back of his hand. In little time did he find himself anxiously standing in front of Calum's apartment door: 47.

He reached out and grasped onto the cool brass doorknob, hesitating once or twice before he flicked his wrist and pushed open the door. Luke stepped into Calum's apartment, in which almost every light was striked on. Luke gently allowed the door to close, a soft click sounding behind him.

Luke's wander through the small complex, automatically landing on Calum's moving figure rummaging throughout the kitchen as he poured some water into a kettle, simultaneously warming the stovetop. He coughed into his fist in order to grab his friend's attention - which worked without much effort. Calum's head snapped in the direction of which Luke stood and flashed him a polite smile. Luke couldn't help but to notice the slight bags that hung underneath his eyes and the way Calum's eyelids drooped.

"Aye, Luke. Come join me in the kitchen. I'm making us some mugs of tea," he says, waving his friend over as he settled the kettle on the warmed stovetop burner. With his task being completed, Calum simply leaned against the countertop and let his arms cross his chest. He was dressed similarly to Luke, wearing an old band shirt and some grey joggers that loosely hung from his lips, a slight glimpse of his brief’s band peeking overtop the joggers.

Luke became tentative about stepping out from the shadows of the doorway, his teeth nibbling into the full flesh of his lower lip. He snapped himself into reality before he raised any sudden suspicions to Calum, taking short steps towards the kitchen in which Calum stood in.

Calum's warm smile dropped as he took in Luke's figure, his skin blotchy and his eyes trimmed with a painful red. His lips were chapped, crying out for some sort of moisture. His typically brilliant bright blue irises were dull and practically emotionless. As if it couldn't get any worse, Calum's jaw slacked at the sight of a red, a swollen handprint marked on Luke's soft cheek.

Calum didn’t believe it at first, just as Luke had.

"No," Calum shook his head, his attention immediately being drawn towards the mark made on Luke's cheek. "He would have never done something like that. Don't tell me he did, Luke. Don't tell me that he's that  _stupid_ to do something like that."

Luke remained silent, leaning himself against the counter across from Calum. He felt as though he will have trouble standing the more that he's on his feet, but he manages to remain standing on his unreliable legs.

He didn't want to end up breaking before his best friend and become an emotional and unstable wreck, but it seems that his emotions are a few steps before him because the ache in his heart is already beginning to set, throbbing within his chest.

Luke let his head fall, training his eyes on the floor underneath his feet as the tears welled up at the corners of his eyes, turning his vision into a thin wall of foggy tears that are soon to fall. "Ashton's been hiding something from me. From all of us," Luke says, his voice cracking in the middle as his legs begin to tremble once again.

That was when Calum's front door bursts open and Michael was stumbling over his own two feet to enter the apartment, his eyes frantically overlooking the lit living space before landing on Luke's trembling frame and Calum's wide eyes. Calum simply continued to stare at Luke, wanting to hear what he has to say. He acknowledged Michael's presence, but he didn't tear his eyes away from Luke. Michael remained silent as he closed the door behind him, swiftly walking his way into the kitchen and approaching Luke.

Michael swung his arms over Luke's shoulders, bringing the frail blonde boy into his arms as sobs unintentionally fell from his quivering pair of lips. He was unable to speak proper words now.

Calum began getting frustrated, overwhelmed by the thought of Ashton hitting Luke. But now, he wanted to discover what Ashton was hiding from them for all of this time and what triggered Ashton to do such a thing.

"I came over as fast as I could," Michael murmured as he wrapped his arms securely around Luke's waist. Luke's tears were seeping into the thin cotton material of his shirt, Luke's weak arms gingerly wrapping around Michael's torso, his muscles significantly weakening with his heartbreak.

Calum swallows thickly as he ran his fingers through his head of messy raven hair. His eyes were blank, showing no emotion as he was trying to rack his brain of an exclamation as to why Ashton would commit himself to such a selfless act. The worst part of this new discovery is that he's concealing a dark secret away from his closest friends, a sharp pain to shoot through Calum's chest. He was emotionally hurt and he knew that when Michael knows what happened that he'll be just as wounded, too.

"Ashton hurt Luke," Calum spoke. His voice was frail and filled with no substance. "Ashton Irwin, our best friend, actually raised a hand against his own boyfriend and our best friend." Calum was speaking as if he was trying to convince himself that this is what had really happened. Using his index and middle fingers, he ran small and heavy circles around his temples. He seemed strained as he tried to wrap his mind around the thought of Ashton's caring and outgoing personality flipping and turning into something selfish and abusive.

Michael was a bit startled by Calum's words, his arms loosening around Luke's quivering figure. He rested his hands firmly on Luke's shoulders and pried him away from himself to get a through look at Luke. His eyes widened immediately, showing more white than green as he saw the swelling handprint on Luke's cheek. His jaw slacked from lack of words, face scrunching from the sheer confusion that enveloped him. He took a step back, running his fingers through his dyed strands of dark purple hair.

"No," Michael says, shaking his head repeatedly. "Ashton wouldn't have the soul to hit anyone. Tell me what really happened, Luke-,"

"That's what happened," Luke mumbled quietly as he bit down at the metal ring adorning his lower lip. He used the pad of his thumbs to brush away the falling hot tears from his cheeks. "But he has a reason as to why he hit me. I found something that he didn't want me to find and he blew up. I've never seen him so upset before." Luke laughs sarcastically, almost making himself jump from the false laugh that fell from his mouth. "I was being so stupid. I can't believe that I haven't found out about any of this until now."

Calum pushes himself from the counter and nudges his shoulder against Luke's and rests his hand on his shoulder. "Tell us about everything, Luke. We'll listen to everything that you have to say."

Nodding leisurely, Luke backs up into the counter and stares blankly at the floor below his feet, wiggling his toes within his untied converse sneakers. He gripped onto the counter a bit more securely than necessary, the skin over his knuckles straining and turning a pale white from the immense tension. Luke was still biting down on the black metal hoop, rotating his jaw in small circles as he fiddled absentmindedly with the piece of metal.

"For the past," Luke sighs, furrowing his eyebrows, "I don't know for how long - but for quite a while now, Ashton's been buying heroin from someone. I don't know the person, but I know that Ashton's not fooling around with any of this. He's taking this whole drug thing seriously." Luke's shoulders dropped as his muscles began to soften as did his grip on the edge of the countertop. "I wanted to know why Ashton's been acting so careless lately, and I decided to look through the house in hopes of finding something that has been affecting his behavior."

As he took a moment to keep himself composed to the point of which he can speak, causing for an uncomfortable fit of silence to wash over the three boys. Luke self-consciously let his arms cross his chest as he tried to bite back the sobs and to keep the next round of tears from falling, successfully working it out as he continued to speak.

"I found everything in the medicine cabinet in our bathroom. He uses needles," Luke’s makes a gesture with his index finger and uses it as a physical representation of a needle, pretending to inject it into his arm. "He injects it into his arm. He saw me and I grabbed the drugs, rubbing them in his face and asking him why he never came to me.” He takes another deep intake of air. “He gave me a warning, he really did. Being the stubborn ass I was at the time, I decided not to listen to what he had to say and just kept pushing him. I eventually made him break and he snapped on me. He snapped right in front of me and slapped me without hesitation. I don't know if I knew that it was going to happen but I couldn't help but to be so frantic. He never came to me when he felt upset." Luke shook his head.

Michael shakes his head in disbelief. "That doesn't sound like Ashton. Are you feeling alright, Luke?"

Luke ignores Michael's efforts in trying to blame all of this on his health. "That's why he never came to write with us or to record anything. He just hung out with some other people as he got high." Luke's voice held a bit more venom than he expected there to be. "He didn't want to be around us for some reason and this - this  _drug -_  is making him think that he can do anything. Maybe that's why he slapped me, because he thinks that he can do anything he wants and can get away with it."

"Whoa, mate." Calum cut Luke to an abrupt halt, holding his palms out to him. "You're not making any sense, now."

"You don't understand, do you?" Luke says. "He doesn't want to-," he cuts himself off when his phone vibrates within the pocket of his sweats, drawing his attention away from the boys in front of him. He sighs heavily before dragging the phone out from his pocket, his eyes landing directly on the caller ID. He wanted to deny the call, he really did, but something bubbled up in the pit of stomach that made him accept it.

"Hello?" Luke answers in a soft voice, his eyes landing directly on Michael and Calum. They knew, just judging by the looks in their eyes, they knew who was on the other line. Under the current circumstances, Luke knew that they are disapproving of what he's doing. He knew it by the way that their eyes dug into him as he spoke on the phone.

It took Ashton a moment before he gathered up the nerve to speak, sucking in a large breath and bunching together all of the power that he had to talk to Luke. It seemed foreign and unnatural to talk to Luke, especially over the phone.

"Luke," he says firmly. Luke immediately took this at a good sign, his eyebrows knitting together and his eyes pressing to a firm shut as he prepared himself for the hard impact of Ashton's words. "I don't know where you are right now, but I am assuming that you're somewhere safe. Stay there,  _please_. Please just do me a small favor and don't come home tonight. The last thing that I need to happen is for you to get hurt."

Just like that, the line was cut and Luke didn't have the opportunity to say anything in return. He took this as a way as  _I've just been kicked out of the house,_ but he thought Ashton's words over and came to a conclusion that that is not what Ashton meant. His words were brief, but Luke's attention was caught when Ashton mentioned something along the lines of him not wanting Luke to get hurt. There was a tone set in Ashton's voice that worried Luke.

Slowly, Luke retracted the phone away from his ear and stared blankly at the screen before him, his eyelids refusing to blink. He parted his lips, but he was having a major difficulty of trying to find the right words to say to both Calum and Michael. He pulled his head up, closing the screen of his phone and sliding it back into his pocket at a very slow pace.

"I have a bad feeling," Luke begins. "I have a really bad feeling about Ashton right now."

The kettle settled on the stove begins to whistle, the high pitched shriek filling the air. No one retracts it from the burner.


	3. Moment of Truth in Your Lies

It was the dead of the night when the wolves came out to play, and Ashton could already hear them snarling, laughing out into the night. Ashton could feel their eyes piercing through the cover of the trees camouflaging them. At times like these, he wished that he didn’t live in such a rural area that had plenty of coverage for intruders to conceal themselves, but on the other side, he was thankful he wasn’t able to see them, or he’d feel consumed with one look of their hungry eyes feasted upon him.

Ashton was a like a tornado, tearing through the house in a blur in search of necessities and shoving them into a bag to throw around his shoulder. He’s called Luke already, warned him, and hopefully he will pick up the clue. It’s too dangerous to come home, and he can’t live with himself if he’s hurt Luke in a way that he will never get him back.

Suddenly, their home wasn’t so safe anymore. There are eyes on the lookout for Ashton, and as much as he’d like to figure out why, he couldn’t get any answers. The people that were looking for him are not negotiating types, he would say. They are set out to do their job without any conversation, and are willing to shed the blood of others to finish it. Whatever plans they have for Ashton, he doesn’t want to know. He’s not going to be very willing if they take him and press a sharpened blade to his pulse.

He took one last glimpse at the house that has been almost totally swallowed by complete darkness, and swallowed thickly that it almost hurt. Ashton slings his things over his shoulder, and forces himself to move forward. He slips into his car and speeds out into the night with the paranoia that the devilish wolves were on his heel.

~|~

Luke wasn't able to sleep that night, feeling too on-edge and much too curious to let his eyelids flutter to a close and to let sleep overtake his aching body. His heart had shattered into many morsels – irreplaceable fragments – all of which have been flung across Calum's living area. Being in Calum's flat and being cuddled closely by Michael didn't bring any sort of consolation to him as he had predicted it would. Luke still felt as though his heart had been torn in two by Ashton's very own hands, his dull fingernails digging into the flesh and tearing his emotions apart into mangled shreds, spilling out the crippling sadness that couldn't be withheld much longer.

All Luke could possibly want was to be wrapped up in not Michael's arms, but Ashton's robust hold. He wants his hands to be cradled by Ashton's much larger palms, intertwining their fingers together as Ashton slides his lips over the back planes of Luke's hands, landing a gentle kiss to every bump of his knuckles. Luke wants to envelop the love that Ashton once gave him and soak it all up into the fibers that make him human. Luke wants his Ashton back, most assuredly his other half, and to recognize the familiar glint of happiness in the corner of his eyes once again. Ashton is one thing, but Ashton's sense of happiness is another.

Ashton was the type of person who would radiate with energy and pass it on to initially anyone. He is nothing but smiles and giggles, his laugh is the most contagious, and can always manage to etch a large grin onto anyone's frowning lips. Now that this Ashton is gone not only in his presence, but his person, it seems as though Luke's happiness has been drained and he is left bone dry with only wretchedness.

Luke's heart throbs at the thought of losing Ashton, just like he is very near to doing. If he takes one more step out of line and crosses Ashton's firmer boundaries, Ashton is going to result into leaving all that they had built up together and Luke is going to be drowning in his own never-ending pit of sorrow and tears. Luke just doesn't want this relationship to come down in sinister flames, and he doesn't want to be the one whom is feeding the ongoing fire.

Luke just wants Ashton, but he doesn't think that Ashton wants him as he did before.

When Michael had woken up in the early morning, just as the sun began to peek up over the horizon and was dyeing the sky with a mixture of orange, red, and yellow, Luke knew that something must have triggered the pale boy to wake up. That was only then when he realized that he was crying, his body trembling while wrapped protectively within Michael's arms as relentless streams of tears ran down his red tinted cheeks. He's been crying, and he didn't even know.

"I think I should take you home," says Michael softly, voice scratchy and slow. "You and Ashton really need to talk now. It's better to do it sooner rather than later." Michael soothes his hand languidly through his flat blonde hair, in desperate need to appease the younger boy's distress.

Luke shuffles in his spot and wriggles his weak body around to face Michael, burying his face into the warm crevice of his neck, his tears dampening the soft cotton material of Michael's long sleeve V-neck that was very much loose on his torso. Michael didn't hesitate to tangle his arms messily but securely around Luke's quivering body, whispering softly into the blonde's ear as he whimpers and complains of his unbearable heartache. It seems that even though Michael knew he couldn't resolve Luke's pain, but he couldn’t help but to try anyways.

It took quite a while, but Michael managed to coax Luke away from the couch and to step out of the door. Before they had left, Michael scavenged around Calum's kitchen for a notepad and pen and scribbled a quick note to Calum in case he woke up early and wondered where they had run off to. He explains in the context of the note as to where they were going and to call Michael if he needed them. Michael left it to that, capping the pen and tossing the articles back onto the kitchen countertop carelessly.

After slipping on their shoes and heading out the door, Luke lead Michael to his car, wiping away any stray tears that have escaped as they exited Calum's quiet flat. Michael insisted that he drives Luke home because he is in no right condition to drive a vehicle on the public roads, but Luke doesn't protest. With his arm's crossing his chest and hands buried in one of Calum's sweatshirts, Luke slips into the front passenger's seat and buckles up, Michael following suit as he prepared himself in the driver's seat.

After Luke had handed Michael the car keys, Luke nuzzled into Calum's sweatshirt and leaned his head against the car window, his eyelids heavy and trimmed with red, his body lacking of all his sleep. His body was screaming for rest, but his heart was grating itself and begging for Ashton's love and warmth; Luke wants Ashton's earnest, warm lips, and to hold his hands. Luke can't stop his mind from weaving off into thought of Ashton's love and comfort.

The drive was quiet and uneventful. However, the tension in Luke's body was growing the closer they grew in distance to Ashton and Luke's supposedly cozy home. Michael's palms grew sweaty the longer he had his hands on the steering wheel, his own nerves kicking into gear the closer he drove to Luke and Ashton's home. He is still in partial shock from the news of Ashton's latest addiction to an illegal substance and from holding his hand against his own beloved boyfriend, so what he wasn't expecting was what Ashton's behavior was going to be like, even if all he had gotten from Luke was his aggressiveness.

Michael was tempted to tune the radio onto one of their favorite hard rock or pop stations, but he concluded that he should let the quiet sink in. He figures that Luke deserves the long quiet as he sat motionless in the car, staring blankly out the window with eyes that looked dead. He looked as though he wasn't in the mood to turn himself into any edgy rock riffs or catchy pop tunes.

Pulling into the gravel driveway, the small stones beneath the tires crunched, immediately pulling Luke away from his profound state of thought. Luke could feel a wave of tears wanting to flood into his eyes, but they just wouldn't budge; he became dry of them. Michael sets the car into park and cuts the engine, pulling the ring of keys out from the ignition, and averts his attention towards Luke once again.

"I think you're going to be fine," says Michael gently. "Knowing Ashton, he wouldn't just give you up. There has to be some sort of reason behind this. Figure that out before you jump into some ridiculous conclusion, alright?"

Luke stood up straight, never tearing his eyes away from the house. He remained silent and went still, never seeming to blink.

Michael furrows his eyebrows, confused with Luke's stiffness in his stature. "Luke, mate, you alright?" He reaches out, placing a hand on Luke's shoulder. As he went still, he could feel Luke's frame quivering. "Luke," he says more sternly, "talk to me.  _Please_."

Luke swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing as he did so. He slowly turns his head to gaze at Michael, his eyes blown wide with worry. "Something's not right, Mike." His voice held a gravelly tone, wobbling emotion welling into his words and pushing a horrible signal in Michael's direction. "Ashton's car isn't here, and the front door's wide open. It's  _wide open_."

Michael frowns heavily at his words, snapping his head in the direction of the front door, only to discover that Luke's words are true. For a moment, he thought his eyes were deceiving him. His hand falls from Luke's shoulder, slapping down onto the dial. He stills himself, eyes trained on the door as it was wide indeed open, revealing a small sliver of the insides of their house. It wasn’t relieving in the slightest bit knowing that their nearest neighbors were a five to ten minute drive away. Suddenly aware of Ashton's absence and the door being swung open, Michael instantly became worried. Luke, on the other hand, was petrified, his heart jumping up into his throat, blood surging through his veins.

"Come on," says Michael, never tearing his eyes away from front the door, "let's check it out." Opening their doors and slamming them closed, Michael and Luke made their way to the front porch steps, their feet clunking heavily against the heavy wooden steps that lead up to the porch, even if their shoes had light soles.

Michael stuffs his car keys into his front pocket, slowly approaching the doorway with plenty of precaution. Luke followed closely behind, heavily tempted to cling onto the back of Michael's shirt but refraining himself, thinking that he had already been too clingy on Michael as it is. Michael places a hand on the door frame to the front door, peeking his head in, words catching in his throat at the mess before him.

Furniture was thrown in disarray, their couch tipped over and the cushions ripped apart, exposing the soft plush filling, clumps peppered across the floor nearby in a storm. Some decorations and picture frames were shattered, others at a strange tilt along the walls. The shards of glass from the picture frames were scattered in random pools along the floor, making it difficult to find a portion of the floor to step on. The television mounted on the wall in the living room has been cracked, a heavy and dense object of some sort having been thrown into the screen to cause a rather large puncture and crack, spreading throughout the screen. The guilty object was lying on the floor below it – a kitchen stool with a missing leg. The kitchen is trashed, various foods and containers splattered along the granite countertops and white tiled flooring. The walls had random indents and scratches in the paint job.

Luke and Ashton are going to have to refill their fridge with more food. But overall, everything has been made into a mess, making it nearly impossible for anyone to step into the home without stepping onto a broken portions of an antique or glass vase – or any other bits and pieces of furniture for that matter. It was as if a tornado has torn through the place, wrecking all of their belongings, whether it had a lot or little value to him.

"Oh my god," says Luke in sheer bewilderment, squeezing himself past Michael and the doorway, swiftly moving throughout the first floor, his fingers driving through his blonde locks of hair. "Oh my god.  _Michael,_ " he whips himself around and faces Michael, looking like a deer in headlights, frozen with wide eyes exposing whites all around. "Ashton couldn't - no, he  _wouldn't_  do anything like this." He hiccups, slapping a hand over his mouth, holding back any sounds that shows weakness. He's tired of breaking down and showing Michael nothing but pain and fragility.

Michael nods slowly but surely in agreement, still in a slight daze from his own case of personal astonishment. "Ashton wouldn't have done something like this, Luke," he says, "he's not that stupid to do...  _This._ "

Michael steps further into the household, feebly taking the brass doorknob into hand and clicking the door closed behind him. Never tearing his eyes away from all the haphazardly thrown objects and furniture, Michael is still trying to grab a hold onto the problem before him, too taken aback to develop a possible reasoning. Luke's panicked figure isn't helping his jumbled brain. He hasn’t even considered the thought of whether the intruder may still be in the home or not.

Luke steps over the pools of glass, carefully avoiding the shards as he makes his way to the staircase, grasping onto the handle and bounding up the staircase taking two steps at a time. Michael, groaning in frustration, takes large strides and weaves through the mess, following the lanky boy up the steps to keep him in eyesight.

"Oh my god," Luke repeatedly murmurs, letting the phrase jumble from his mouth over and over again, his tongue tripping over the words as he struggled to speak after numerous attempts in doing so. His breathing escalated into an uncontrollable rampage, surely making him lightheaded.

Michael's now hot on Luke's heels, following him into their small musical studio where Ashton's drum set sat and Luke's guitars were hung. Michael was about to snip at Luke and tell him to stop for a split moment to catch his breath, but he made a sudden halt in his tracks as he discovers fowl and threatening words spray-painted into the bare crème colored walls.

"Fuck," Michael breathes, stepping farther into the room and taking in a larger view of the trickling words scribbled in bold black lines.

‘Pay up’, was sprayed on the wall, some smaller lines of black paint sliding down the smooth surface in long streams, all dried but still ominous nevertheless. The words stabbed at Luke's heart, causing for him to scramble around the room and settle himself on the stool by Ashton's drum set, both of his hands layered over one another and covering his mouth, forcing back an upcoming sob. He bites down on his lower lip.

"Ashton has to have gotten himself into some serious fucking trouble," said Michael, tossing his fingers through his vividly dyed hair, his eyes pinching to a firm close. "God dammit, Ash."

Luke's breathing has gone heavy one more and is beginning to quiver, his fingers trembling and failing to hold back the whimpers from his mouth. The thought of Ashton engaging himself into violent dealers on the street terrified him. Ashton is sucking himself into a helpless pile of violence, and the more he takes of the deadly substance he calls relief, the more trouble that he is progressing himself getting into.

Michael catches notice of Luke's breathing and immediately approaches him, coaxing the boy into his arms and soothes his fingers through Luke's thick and flat head of hair. Michael presses his lips to Luke's forehead as they sat there on the floor, Michael soothing down Luke's bursting anxiety as he stares astonishingly at the words permanently sprayed on the walls.

"Where's Ash?" Luke murmurs the words into Michael's neck between shaking sobs. "I want Ash. I  _need_  him."

Michael shakes his head, nuzzling his face into Luke's plush head of hair, taking in the sweet scent and almost immediately recognizing the smell of Ashton's hair products. Michael's heart aches just a little more at this boy's sadness, his arms securing a bit more tightly around his lean frame.

"I wish I knew what you say to you right now, buddy." Michael sticks to that, frowning heavily as Luke continues to tremble and whimper into his neck, his tears once again seeping through the material of his shirt. One day, or another, Ashton is bound to come home. Michael is going to be sure that Ashton tries to fix Luke up again, even if it's the last thing that he will ever do.

~|~

Heavy with sleep, Calum finds himself slowly waking up to the light of the sun beaming down from the small thin cracks between his blinds, falling down onto his face and drawing him out from his peaceful state. A groan rumbles from the back of his throat, his mind groggy and eyelids heavy from the amount of fatigue chugging throughout the veins in his body.

Slowly bringing himself to sit up to let his blood flow regulate better, Calum murmurs small profanities into the palms of his hands, threading his fingers through his messy head of hair. Calum, not being the greatest fan of mornings, doesn't want to depart from his warm and comfort of his bed, but then again, there awaits a sleeping figure of heartbreak in his flat's living room.

After trying to rub more sleep out from his groggy eyes, Calum eventually manages to move his legs and untangle himself from his warm and inviting bed. He trotted against the cold wooden flooring to get to his closet, jamming his feet into a pair of slippers and snatching out a random tee for some cover over his bare and chilly torso.

One he found himself in the right condition to wake up Luke and Michael/greet them with a warm 'good morning', Calum approached his bedroom door and slowly opened it, popping his head out into the hallway to listen to any sort of sound that he can track and identify as one of the two boys. Standing there in complete silence, Calum could not detect any sort of sound other than the soft rumbling of the air conditioner regulating cool air throughout his space.

Widening the door open, Calum steps out from his room and walks at a purposely apathetic pace, gradually making his way through the doorway that opened into the living room. He frowned as he only found it to be empty, there being no sign of neither Luke nor Michael's presence. He took notice of the two blankets tossed over the head of the couch, meaning that they had indeed woken up and left the area.

Calum scratched the side of his head, then striding into the kitchen space, his eyes focused on a notepad with Michael's bold and messy handwriting scribbled onto the paper. He took the notepad into and read over the short note, huffing out a short breath. He dropped the notepad back down onto the countertop and ran his hands down his face, regretting his decision into sleeping in. He has assumed that the boys would have done the same, Luke needing the rest for himself.

In other words, Calum wanted to make sure that Luke would be alright with the situation before them, if not resolve it right away. Calum wanted to put his mind to ease and to tell himself that Luke wouldn't hurt himself in result of Ashton carelessly abusing him.

Calum froze in place at the thought of Ashton, picturing Ashton holding up a hand against Luke after discovering a secret that Ashton didn't want him to find. He still cannot seem to wrap his mind thoroughly around the fact that Ashton is inserting a deadly drug into his system and is engaging himself into people that have the potential to-  _oh my God._

Calum sprints across his flat, darting towards his bedroom and to the nightstand where his phone had been plugged into for the entire night. Pulling at his hair, he took a large batch of air into his lungs before unplugging his mobile from the charger and turning on the screen. Upon unlocking and entering his contacts, Calum stumbles to face Ashton's name and number, his breathing gone heavy. Once he had pressed 'call', Calum pressed the phone to his ear and waited.

He waited as the phone rung, his legs bouncing impatiently as he took a seat on the edge of his unmade bed with muddled sheets. Pinching at the bridge of his nose, Calum redialed his number when he received nothing but Ashton's voicemail box. Again, much to his dismay, he got no answer. Calum repeatedly began calling Ashton's number again and again, either biting his nails, pulling his hair, or clenching onto his sweatpants.

"Hello?" Calum's ears were ringing, anger slowly beginning to boil within him at the sound of his voice.

"After fifteen times I try to get in contact with you, you don't fucking answer until now?" Calum spits. "Do you understand what you're doing, Ashton?  _No_ , of course you don't. You're getting yourself into shit that we can't dig you out of."

Calum hears rustling on Ashton's line, muffled voices speaking in the background and slowly fading the more that Ashton moves and shuffles. Eventually, Calum could hear nothing but Ashton's uneasy breathing pattern. All fell quiet, Ashton was gathering his thoughts, and Calum is trying to compose his rage before he lashes out further onto him.

"I'm busy," says Ashton. "That's why I didn't answer until now. What do you want? To yell at me? I can assure you that it wouldn't help whatever you're fuming about." It's like he's purposely avoiding his mistakes.

Calum scoffs, rolling his eyes theatrically as he hops back onto his feet, only to pace around his room as he spoke furiously over the phone, words flowing fluently from his mouth. "Do you understand how badly you screwed up?" Calum says with venom leaking from his words. "Luke comes over to my house in the early morning with a swelling cheek, and Michael and I had to calm him down because you hit him and fuck with his feelings. You don't hit people, Ashton. Especially when they mean something special to you. What has crawled inside your head to make you do something like that? What the bloody hell has gone wrong with you?"

Ashton sighs. "I should have figured he went to you." After murmuring some incoherent words to himself, Ashton takes a few seconds to scrape up some words to speak to Calum. "I..." He trailed off, sighing again before restarting himself. "It happened," says Ashton, "and I didn't know myself after it happened. I'm lost, as of now, and I'm not sure if I should even be around Luke. I'm not stable as of now."

"Staying away from him is doing a lot more damage to him right now," Calum retorts. "You know how he is, Ash. He's a lot more delicate than what he makes himself out to be. If anything, Luke isn't stable without you, knowing that there's shit going on between the both of you."

"Do you really think I don't know that?" Ashton bites back. "I know, Calum. God dammit, I  _know_  that he doesn't take some things lightly. I would know because I'm in a relationship with him and we've already been through some shit times. This is just one of the rougher ones."

Calum freezes in his tracks, his words strained from between his clenched teeth. "Then how about, instead of cowering away from it, you fix the damn problem? Get out of the shadows and step up to the plate, because Luke is hurting more than you can ever imagine."

Ashton clenches his jaw, trying hold back his own burning words of fury. Through a strained jaw, Ashton speaks. "I can't. He needs to stay with you until things get a little more stable with the both of us."

Calum laughs in a sickly manner. "Funny, because you should be the one fixing this. Go home right now, alright? Michael drove Luke home this morning." He sucks in a long breath, letting his lungs soak in the oxygen. "What the fuck is 'until things get more stable' supposed to mean anyway? Everything is adding to the stress on Luke's shoulders and-,"

"Luke  _this,_  Luke  _that_ ," Ashton bites, his words frozen and bitter. "I get it, Calum. I understand that I fucked up beyond belief, but did it ever occur to you that I might be going through some shit, too?"

Calum fell silent, feeling a bit taken dumfounded, looking at a new perspective - Ashton's. Despite the fact that Ashton has afflicted an accessible amount of emotional pain and abuse to his own lover, Ashton's hiding behind the shadows, injecting himself with a venomous drug for an unknown reason. Ashton's hurting, too, but he chose to scurry away from the limelight.

Ashton continued to ramble. "Luke and I's relationship is turning into a pile of rubble. We're pulling apart, and it's a mutual force between the both of us. The fights are painful, Calum. The looks on Luke's face whenever either of us start them - God, it kills me. I love him, Calum. I have never fell so hard for someone before, and I don't want to hurt him. I need to be away from him so that I can't..." Ashton trails off, voice thick with bubbling emotion.

"Finish," Calum says firmly despite Ashton's welling sadness and tears.

Ashton takes in a sharp breath, filling his lungs to the very brim before pushing the last few words, syllables, or even sounds from his mouth. "I can't hurt him. I don't  _want_  to hurt him. That's my reason as to why I need to be away from him. I can't hurt him anymore. Things between us are toxic right now."

Calum gives a bitter laugh. "Really?" He says incredulously, his sudden pity evaporating quickly. "If anything, you're making this a lot more difficult for Luke. That boy is head-over-heels for you and he needs you. Talk about it with him before you consider distance. He's different, you know that. He needs you whenever it's possible-,"

"Wait," Ashton freezes Calum, cutting his hot and rather vile words short. "Did you say that Luke went home?"

Calum's eyebrows knit together, his skin crawling with the way that Ashton had him at a sudden halt. "I mentioned that a while ago," he says, his words slowly fading with the obvious anger that was once held in them. "Michael woke him up this morning and took him home. I figure that they're waiting for you to come back or something. He wrote me a note this morning and left it on the kitchen counter."

The golden-haired boy groans loudly, a stream of muffled profanities sounding from Ashton's line. "Did they call you at all this morning?"

He hesitates. "I don't like where you're going with this." He sounded uneasy, as if he were to be getting sick to his stomach. "Do you know something that we don't?"

The silence that drifted in the air stabbed repeatedly at Calum's abdomen, an invisible mass of nothing clogging his throat the longer that Ashton remained quiet. Silence is an answer initially no one wants to hear, and Calum needs some source of reassurance from Ashton telling him that everything is normal and that he'll see Luke within the next few hours ahead of them. However, the longer Ashton keeps his lips shut, the more Calum grows anxious.

Ashton, who was pinching the bridge of his nose and sinking his teeth down into the flesh of his tongue, was thinking. He was panicking, yes, but he needed to compose himself before he darts out to his car and speeds at dangerously zooming speeds and checks the safety of Luke and Michael in their house. He knew something that Calum didn't.

"Say something," Calum begs. "Believe it or not, no matter how much we're upset with you, we're all worried about you. Tell me what's happening. If it makes you feel any better, I can dial up Mike's number and check up on them." Again, Ashton doesn't answer. "Ashton," Calum edges, "you need to talk with me. You're starting to scare the shit out of me."

Ashton braces himself once more, taking a heavy breath in and tapping his free fingers on his jumping knee. "I need you to call Michael. Just make sure they're okay. I need to talk with you - in person. Can we meet up somewhere?"

After ending their call, Calum had followed Ashton's orders, dialing Michael's number. He did answer, explaining how he and Luke have safely returned to Luke and Ashton's home.

That still didn't ease Calum's nerves.

~|~

Ashton sat at a small table set for two outside of the Panama Rock Cafe, his trembling fingers clutching at a hot cup of steaming tea, the heat waving in small mists in the cooling air. He hovers the cup over his chapped lips, his eyes flickering in every which direction, the effects of his last dosage wearing off from his shivering body. He's becoming antsy, his skin crawling for another needle to inject the lovely and warming drugs into his bloodstreams and cool his erratic nerves. However, he can't. He must wait for Calum's presence to show, to meet with him and to talk with him face-to-face before he has to speak with a troubled Luke.

He needs Calum before he is forced to drive himself home in his car.

The weather is a tad bit chiller, Ashton's forearms covered with goosebumps as the frosty air splashed against his chilly skin. He settles and burning hot cup of tea back down onto the table, snuggling the beanie atop of his head down firmly onto his head. Sinking his teeth into his bottom lip, Ashton lets his finger tap expertly but quietly upon the countertop, aware of the groups of other people surrounding him, holding conversations with friends, co-workers, family...

"Hey," says the voice Ashton was almost dreading to hear. Tearing his eyes away from the crowd of people seated around him in the small restaurant, they land on the tall and lean figure of Calum.

Swallowing thickly, he nods, his lips pressed together in a forced smile as acknowledges Calum's obviously tense presence. "Hello," says Ashton, his accent sounding a bit foreign to Calum's ears. He cannot remember the last time he properly held a conversation with Ashton while looking directly at him.

Fixing the shades settled on his nose and concealing his warm eyes, Calum takes a seat across from Ashton, his head turning in different directions as he observes their outside seat on the patio. "I'm a little uncomfortable with this seat out in public," Calum says. "I don't know what you've been up to and what kind of people you are seeing."

"Sorry," Ashton apologizes immediately. "'S very crowded inside. I don't think there are many seats left in there." He shrugs his shoulders, scratching at the stubble along his firm jawline.

Calum nods, understanding almost immediately. He snatches out a menu in front of him, unfolding it and grazing through the selections in food and drinks served at the restaurant that they are dining at. "I'm taking it that you haven't bothered at least dialing Luke at all," Calum says, never departing his eyes away from the menu.

Ashton wraps his cold fingers around the warm mug once again, drawing it closer to him as his nervous eyes flicker over Calum's figure as he studies the food. "Other than last night, no." He licks his lips, raising he hot tea to his lips, letting the steam of the drink warm his nose and lips. "It wasn't safe for him to be home last night after he left."

Calum raises his eyebrows at this, folding the menu back up and pushing it to the edge of the table. "What the hell could you have done to make your own home be unsafe for Luke?"

The boy with coffee locks takes a minute, one hand holding the mug firmly as the other fidgets with the beanie sat upon his head, flicking away the bothersome russet swirls of hair blocking his line of vision. "I've invested myself in a group of people that are known for being violent whenever they don't get what they want," he begins slowly, his voice lowering as if fearing for someone to overhear him. "I didn't have any pocket money with me at the time to pay them back and they just... Blew up, you know?" He then murmurs softly to himself, "I should have seen it coming."

"No," says Calum. "I don't know."

Ashton shivers at the cold tone, immediately letting his eyes fall down to the hot liquid shimmering in the mug within his hands. He fell quiet, an imaginary lump forming in the midst of his throat, preventing him from being able to speak fluent words that would make sense. It seems as though his brain has forgotten the English language. In the matter of the snap of his fingers.

Letting out a dragged and almost unnecessary sigh, Calum folds his hands and lies them on the table top, looking at Ashton with hard eyes, even obvious to Ashton when concealed behind shaded lenses. "Do you know how much trouble you're getting yourself into? If you're telling Luke to stay out of the house because there are violent people coming to wreck it, you must be really stupid because you could have potentially gotten him hurt."

Placing his mug down on the tabletop again, Ashton buries his forearms and hands into the sleeves of a seemingly oversized jacket that hung on his shoulders. He folded his arms, pressing them to his chest. "I didn't mean for things to go that far."

Calum licks at his lips, drumming his fingers on the solid top. "Of course you didn't," he says. "I don't expect you to do things like this on purpose, but I am going to expect you to think things through a bit better for now on. I cannot explain to you in words how disgusted I am by what you did."

"Shut up," Ashton breathes, catching Calum off guard. "Shut up for one minute, and let me talk, alright?" Calum remains silent. Taking a deep breath in to try and settle his nerves, Ashton lets his eyes wander and fall to Calum's hidden ones, furrowing his eyebrows slightly. "I've been miserable with myself for a while," Ashton begins, voice thick and slow, "and I've never really brought anything up to Luke about it. The fact that we've been getting into fights with one another hasn't helped, and is only making everything worse. The  _pain_  is progressively getting worse."

"How comes you haven't approached Mike and I about it if not Luke?" Calum asks, his tone softening.

"Because I'm not one to drag anything personal and far too dramatic into our friendship and be the one to act so down all of the time," Ashton says, using his index and middle finger to pinch at the bridge of his nose. "I was secretly wishing for all of the pain to go away, but it built over time, adding more weight onto my shoulders. I thought, if I began starting  _this_ , you know, some things would get better." He shakes his head, the small bits of ringlets peeking underneath his head accessory bouncing at the motion. "But no - it didn't. Not in the least bit."

Calum frustratingly pulls his fingers through his dark hair, stretching lightly at his scalp. "Ash, you can't..." He trails off, sighing and restarting himself. "You can't cut yourself off like that. We're you're friends, and we're supposed to help you through all of the drama, especially when you're hurting. Me, Luke, Mikey - that's what we're here for. Don't hold it in like it doesn't matter, because it does. Some things that you think don't matter might just matter."

"I screwed up," Ashton says. "I know I did, that's not the problem. The problem is that I feel relieved and so much more content when I'm under the influence of drugs," his voice grew quieter the close he got to the end of his sentence. "I really need another dose," he says dryly. "I need it. I feel like I'm going insane."

Calum shakes his head, all in disbelief of Ashton's behavior. "I can't watch you like this," he says. "I can't watch you tear yourself apart when you don't even know."

Ashton nearly begins to claw at his head, the thrumming in his head becoming a bother the longer he sat there with no further injections. "It hurts, Cal. Everything hurts."

"I know," he says. He reaches across the table, gripping onto Ashton's forearm and running his thumb repeatedly over his wrist. "We're going to help you, Ash. We'll help you get better."

"Please," Ashton begs, voice trembling.

"I promise. And a promise will remain a promise."


	4. Semi-Charmed Life

Michael is still tightly grasping onto the trembling body of Luke, submerging his face into the warm crevice of his neck as he whispers soft reassurances to him, vowing that everything will turn out well in the end after this bloody war is over between them. It _has_ to.

He promises Luke that once everything is resolved and all is well as it was before, that Ashton will be able to caress him like he did and that they'll be able to carry on with their unconditional passion for music. They can move forward as if nothing had happened in the first place.

Everything must return to normal. If not, the world will turn into crumbling rubble below Luke's feet, and Michael doesn't know how long he would fall for until he finds even ground.

He was giving Luke almost too many promises at the time being, all of which he doesn't know if he will be able to fulfill, but it was all that he could do to keep Luke collected and calm for the moments passing by until Ashton and Calum arrive and try to start bandaging, stitching the large wound that has sliced deeply into the flesh of Luke and Ashton's once strong-built relationship. If they mend what’s been broken between the two, all of them can find some peace and return to their original source of happiness. This episode would be just another bump in the road in the future.

Calum had dialed Michael's number earlier on, all to tell how he's going to stop by his flat to gather clothing and anything else necessary for staying over a few nights at Ashton and Luke's home. In Michael's strong and insistent request, he will also gather some of Michael’s belongings, wanting to reassure himself that Luke will be well and stable. Michael held an almost suffocating amount of worry for Luke than he could muster. So, to solve for this worry, he’ll accompany Calum while keeping an eye on Ashton’s unpredictable behavior. He isn't at peace with the situation, especially since Ashton has left a handprint on Luke's cheek.

As time had slowly inched onward, Michael managed to rock Luke into a light sleep, letting him curl up into his lap while laying down comfortably on his and Ashton's soft bed, the plush mattress caressing his body like a soft cloud built in the heavens. Michael wasn't startled in the least bit when soft snores erupted from the back of Luke's throat - he was relieved that he had the ability to let his body regenerate some energy, to drive him into a fit of sleep that would hopefully bring him some inner peace. Michael drove his fingers through his blonde wavy strands of hair, pressing a firm kiss to his warm forehead before carefully parting from the bed. He tiptoed his way out of the room, gently closing the door behind him until it clicked to a soft close.

As he let out a theatrical sigh and pulls his fingers through his own head of vividly dyed hair while he makes his way downstairs. Despite spending almost half of the day there, he had still not gotten around to cleaning up the mess that was made around the house. He was much too occupied with Luke at the time being. Now that he was given the opportunity to sweep up the glass and toss away the broken and no longer reusable furniture, he was going to make sure everything was as close to spotless as possible before Ashton and Calum's arrival.

Once he had located their broom and dustpan, Michael begins sweeping, gathering all of the shattered shards of glass into a pile Michael brushes everything into the pan, disposing it all in the trash bin that has been stashed beneath the kitchen sink. He momentarily stands himself in the middle of the living room, the broom still held in hand and the dustpan lying on the floor. He suppresses the urge to call someone to clean the mess up for him, staring with widened eyes at the extensive clutter.

"This is going to be a while," Michael murmurs bitterly to himself, his shoulders slumping at the large project that is lying uselessly before him.

Between the course of an hour and a half or two hours, Michael had managed to collect all of the couch stuffing and tossed it into the overflowing trash bin, now in need of being taken to the curb. He had moved the ruined piece of furniture aside. It is no longer able to be used. Michael picked up all of the fallen photo frames, collecting more broken glass in small mounds. He began placing the damaged frames on top of the shards of glass. 

The last chore Michael had yet to complete was to clean up the ferocious mess of spoiled food in the kitchen and over the countertops. As he approached the mess, the front door slowly creaked open, signaling Calum and Ashton's arrival. Snapping his head over in the direction of the front door, Michael watched with hawk eyes as Calum and Ashton stumble over their own feet to enter with bags tightly clenched in their hands. Knowing Ashton's presence is near makes something crawl beneath his skin, not just in excitement but in a way that makes the nerves at the ends of his fingers go viral.

Michael drops an empty egg carton filled with nothing but shattered egg shells, dripping egg whites, and broken yolks into the trash bin before bounding over towards the door. Flinging himself in Ashton's way, he wraps his arms tightly around his firm torso, burying his face into the juncture of where Ashton's neck connected with his shoulder. He smells of nicotine and other musky scents that he can't quite put his finger on.

Dropping the bags he held in his hands, Ashton tentatively lets his arms tangle somewhat loosely around Michael's shoulders. His mind was a bit foggy and jumbled at the moment, his last dose still wearing off from his body. Momentarily he was confused as to why Michael was embracing him instead of smacking him upside the head for what he has done. Despite these thoughts, Ashton accepted the warm welcome from his close friend, slightly swaying as Michael kept him in a firm hold. Calum closes the front door behind them once he pulls everything inside, dropping them by the door.

"You're a fucking moron," Michael mumbles into Ashton's neck, his eyes pinched shut and eyebrows furrowed.

Ashton sighs. "I know."

Everything was left to that as Calum regained his focus and dragged away the luggage Ashton once held into the nearly vacant living area. As Calum was pulling in all of the packed bags belonging to both him and Michael, he stiffens and slowly takes in the looks of the space before him. There was still plenty of possessions that needed to be organized, objects that needed to be placed in their original position, and the kitchen still remained a nightmare to all housemaids across the globe.

"Jesus," Calum hisses, pulling at his hair and scratching his scalp. "Can someone explain to me what happened to this place? It's like a storm tore through the place." Turning on the balls of his feet, he faces Michael and Ashton just as they pull away from their welcoming embrace. "How the hell do you manage to do something like this?" His warm coffee brown eyes settled on Ashton, his thick eyebrows beginning to furrow together in confusion.

Ashton, his face falling bleak, slowly took steps into the living space. His dirty converse sneakers nicked at the heel against the flooring with every other step forward he took. He let his eyes scrutinize every small portion of the mess, even if Michael had gathered a large ration of the jumble in his home. He swallows thickly, his hand coming up to run against his jawline, letting his fingertips revel in the feel of his facial stubble. His hand then comes to a pause, his palm concealing his mouth.

Calum and Michael exchange glances, both expressing heavy apprehension towards their beloved friend. Michael was the first to tear his eyes away, watching Ashton as he made his way to the sofa that was pushed aside, running his fingers over the nearly shredded and deflated cushions.

"It was worse before," Michael says, his words a bit too small before he improves by inserting more volume. "There was a lot of broken glass from framed photographs and some small antiques." He sighs, scratching at the back of his head. "You should really take a look into the music room. Someone spray painted shit onto your wall-,"

"I'm not surprised," Ashton interrupts him, seeming a bit agitated with a slight edge held in his voice. "Just tell me," he turns his torso around, locking his eyes to specifically Michael, "where is Luke?"

Michael's jaw slacks to open his mouth and produce words, practically gaping like a fish, but it takes him a few tries before he could even utter a small sound. "He's in your room," he says, one of his hands coming up to rub at the opposite shoulder, a bit uncomfortable where this has headed. Michael knew that they had to reunite at some time, but this is pretty soon, and the bruise had only just developed on Luke's young and soft skin. "I think you might want to leave him to rest. He hasn't slept last night, and he really needs to put his nerves to a rest."

Ashton folds his arms across his chest, his mouth gone dry as he tried to lick some moisture into his chapped lips. "I want to see him, Michael," he says firmly. "Let me see him."

"Uh," Michael hesitated, taking a step backwards, a bit taken aback by the firmness held in his voice. "Ashton," he stumbled verbally, eventually regaining his stance, "I really don't think you should bother Luke while he's finally sleeping. He's been a big mess all day and just... It's best to leave him alone until he wants to speak with someone. He's just really sensitive at the moment."

Rolling his eyes, Ashton let his strained and bulking arms fall back to his sides, his shoulders squaring up against Michael. "Fuck this. I don't care about what you say. I'm seeing him, and you can't force me." Revolving quickly on his heels, Ashton hastily makes his way to the staircase, his urgent steps echoing throughout the vast space and ascending staircase.

Calum groans and immediately adds a sprint into his step, chasing Ashton up the steps, feeling as though it is a necessity for Luke to get all of the possible alone time and rest that he needs for all that has happened recently. Michael, nearly stumbling over his own feet at first, follows Calum closely behind on his heels, determined to let Luke have as much possible space from Ashton as possible. Luke just needs more time to recover from the blow last night – he was still in shock from it. Michael couldn't blame him for it.

"Stop," Calum barks, lunging himself forward and clutching snugly onto Ashton's bicep. "God Ashton, what has gotten into you?" He yanks at Ashton, forcing him backward, Michael only just reaching the top of the steps as this was being done. Ashton's posture seems strained, his jaw clenched to form a sharp edge of prominent angle. Calum's heart begins to race at this, with his behavior becoming so unpredictable during his first day of withdrawal since he started the drug.

Through gritted teeth, Ashton speaks, "Stop getting up my ass, you prick." With the quick thrash and thrust of his arm, Ashton had sent Calum's body stumbling backward into the hallway, his head thumping loudly against the drywall. Ashton simply stands there, his nostrils flaring and his skull thudding as his irritation towards Calum only increases intensely. His facial expressions didn't display any subtle or obvious signs of regret or guilt towards his aggressive action.

Michael stood frozen with widened eyes, speechless as he watches as Calum nearly shivers with fear of Ashton hurting him again – he's paranoid of being thrown around like a useless rag doll. Calum could already feel a rhythm beating form at the back of his head from the collision he made with the wall, feeling ill to his unsettled stomach with the rush that shook his thinking process. His knees wobbled underneath the weight of his body as he watched Ashton trudge his way to the closed bedroom door, his hand reaching out to the brass knob and twisting it with a sharp turn.

Ashton snaps his head back once more and shoots both Michael and Calum a warning look. "Let me try and fix this, alright?" His words remained bitter. "I don't think you're being much of a help right now. I need him just as much as he needs me." He parts away, opening the bedroom door and stepping into the quiet space, closing the door gently behind him, as if he were scared of waking the blonde boy from his slumber - even when he was going to wake him anyways.

As soon as he was standing by the closed door, his eyes found Luke's body curled up into an unconscious ball, his hair flat and messy. Luke's chest rose and fell softly, warming the frozen portions of Ashton's heart and making him melt. The intensity in his muscles evaporated. He watched Luke snooze away in his peaceful slumber, a small smile playing at his dry lips.

Letting his eyes observe the scenery around him, Ashton found that some things were left haphazardly on the floor. Some photographs were missing from their walls and nightstands, and the open door leading to the bathroom showed only a glimpse of the mess on the floor - hair products, face scrubs, cologne, and other bottles and containers were strewn across the floor. He ignores the twisting in his abdomen. 

Tearing his focus away from the early intrusion the other night, Ashton looks back at Luke, his eyes warm and fond as he slowly and quietly walks around the bed to reach the open side that Luke isn't resting upon. Luke had settled himself on the left half of the bed - originally known as Ashton's half. Ashton couldn't find the nerve within him to be angry about such a small thing. If anything, it was displaying Luke's affection for him.

Luke will forever unconditionally love Ashton, and every fiber in Ashton’s being knows it.

Leisurely slipping onto the bed beside Luke, Ashton gradually closes the space between the both of them. He was yearning to feel the warmth of Luke's body and to wrap him up into the safety of his arms. So, he did. Gliding his arm underneath Luke's body, Ashton huddles into Luke's back, snuggling his face into the crook of his neck. He took in the sweet scent of Luke, letting his lips graze across the thin and delicate skin of his neck.

Ashton feels Luke's body stiffen in his grip, suddenly aware of Ashton's presence and touch. Luke's eyes fluttered open, glancing down at the muscular arms wrapped around his waist and drawing him into an all-too familiar body – a firm and powerful chest. Luke swallows, letting his tongue glide across his lips and linger across his metal lip ring.

"You're back," Luke speaks, his words coming out as weak and gravelly from his sleep.

Ashton nods into Luke's neck, refusing to answer verbally. His golden curls tickle Luke's cheek, causing for the slim blonde boy to gnaw onto the metal ring adorning his lip. He untucked his arms from underneath himself, his hands searching for Ashton's of which were resting at his waist. Luke moved his callused fingertips to run across the skin of Ashton's hand, running over the gentle bumps of his knuckles and wrist.

They both sat in a perfect fit of silence, soaking in one another's radiating heat. Ashton was repeatedly telling himself how lucky of a man he was to have a close person like Luke involved in his life. Luke is Ashton's spur of stimulation to become an enhanced being - to become better person and to become an inspiration to others. Little does Ashton know that Luke relies on Ashton like life on oxygen – and he relies on Ashton just a fish depends on clean water.

"I'm sorry," Ashton murmurs faintly. "I don't know what had gotten into me. I would've never done something so immature - so childish. I admit it, I am an idiot for hitting you like that, and it's unforgivable. I'm so sorry, Luke." Ashton lifts his head ever-so-slightly, observing Luke's bruised cheek from a better perspective. He winced at the sight, the guilt looming, taking aim, and sphering his heart, shredding it apart and letting all of the guilt release through veins within his body.

Luke breaks apart Ashton's intertwined hands, slipping his fingers in between Ashton's superior and lengthy digits, then delivering a firm squeeze. "I forgive you," he said, turning his body around, facing Ashton directly with his tired eyes. "No matter how much of an idiot you are, I'm always going to end up forgiving you."

Ashton shook his head, his untamed head of ringlets growing messier the more he rubbed his head against the pillow. "What I have done was so unforgivable," he says. "I could've seriously hurt you, Luke. People came to our home and trashed the entire place. I would've never been able to get over the fact that I hurt you if it happened. My fucked up decisions are beginning to screw up our living conditions and our safety."

Luke inched himself closer to Ashton, tilting his head upward to graze his full set of rosy lips against Ashton's warm forehead. He noticed a thin line of sweat along Ashton's hairline, his cracked lips lacking color, pale skin, and his dull eyes. If Luke stayed still enough, he could just barely remark the seemingly insignificant quiver of Ashton's body. Luke wraps his arms around Ashton, drawing the boy into his chest, pressing his non-bruised cheek against Ashton’s chest. Ashton's ruthless curls tickled Luke's neck, barely encouraging a smile to form upon his lips.

He isn't that thoughtless. Luke knows that Ashton must be going through some withdrawal symptoms if he hadn't taken a dosage of heroin for an extended amount of time. Ashton's body must be crawling for another injection to enter into his veins. Luke closes his eyes and only hopes for the best.

"We'll stay at Calum or Michael's until we find somewhere better to stay," Luke says softly. "I'm worried for you, Ashton. You're addicted to this thing that's destroying your body - it's destroying _you_." He buries his face in Ashton's messy head of hair, regardless if it may just be a bit greasy or in need of a wash.

Ashton struggles to bite down his nerves but also pulls back on some other points he wanted to bring up to Luke. He's playing with fire, poking at it with a short and feeble stick, then throwing miscellaneous objects into the pit. One wrong move, everything could burst at the seams and some falling apart at his feet in a fiery explosion that could lead to a treacherous downfall. Ashton wants to believe that he will recover from his somewhat newly formed addiction – to throw this hazardous addiction away.

"I know," is all he could say for the time being. It's all he had to say by just pulling from his brain. So many things were rummaging around in his skull, preventing from him being able to think clearly, a fog making him feel like he's taken a step backward. He's addicted, his trembling fingers curling into his palm as he closes his eyes, nuzzling his face into Luke's chest.

“I love you,” says Luke, his fingers now combing through Ashton’s hair.

“I love you, too,” Ashton mumbles almost brokenly into Luke’s chest, pinching his eyelids shut to prevent his eyes from letting any tears escape. Now that he has Luke back in arm’s reach, he cannot possibly be torn away from him. Luke’s safety and well-being is all that matters to Ashton. But he is almost convinced that the devil upon his shoulder is bound to cast an evil spell to break them apart.

~|~

His head was thudding, heart racing, and sweat was beginning to trickle in droplets down his flushed face. His body frame is stressed, all of the muscles within his shoulders grown taut. Withdrawal was beginning to kick Ashton’s ass, and his mental sanity was hanging by a thin line on the edge of a cliff. We was dangling, struggling to keep himself under control, but he isn’t sure about how long he can withstand his need for heroin.

Luke was there. Luke had promised that he will always be there, willing to help Ashton through even the most problematical situations such as this. He was worried, his eyebrows drawing together as his forehead crinkled. He was unsure about how to console an addict going through these awful and torturous symptoms. The least he could do was to pepper kisses along his jaw and wrap his arms around his torso as his boyfriend trembled, repeating nonsense.

“I can’t,” he says, mouth dry, struggling to speak clearly even as Luke is trying to keep him grounded. “I can’t do it,” he repeats, shaking his head slightly as Luke snuggles his face into the crook of his neck. Ashton’s back was pressed against the chilly wooden backward, sitting upon his pillows. Sitting closely next to Luke, his arms wrapped around his propped legs, pressing them closely to his chest.

Luke hums, only pressing another tender kiss to the juncture where Ashton’s jaw meets his neck. “I know you _can_ ,” he murmurs softly. “You’re so strong, Ash. You can do anything that you set your heart to.” Luke’s arms gave Ashton a soft squeeze. “Do you want me to get you anything? Some water, maybe?”

“I’m an idiot,” Ashton blurts, his eyes suddenly blown wide as if he was astonished by something. “I’m such a fucking idiot,” he spits. His hands flew up from locking his legs in place and tangled through his hair, his dull fingernails still managing to scratch uncomfortably at his scalp. “I shouldn’t have started this,” he repeats numerous times, voice remaining dry and showing signs of desperation.

Luke unravels his arms from around Ashton, slipping back to take a full look at his panicked figure. This contemporary attitude coming from a person like Ashton was peculiar. He’s never seen him so distraught, so thirsty for something that holds nothing but bad intentions. Luke observes the way Ashton’s eyes would flicker all around the bedroom, never landing on him once. Ashton’s Adam’s apple bobbed often, signaling to Luke about his frequent swallowing and how his dry mouth his becoming a bother. Ashton is pale, his hair crazed, and the sweat along his hairline began trickling down the sides of his face, catching on his sharp jaw.

Luke is beginning to run dry of options. He doesn’t know how to calm Ashton down, making him feel defeated and a bit drained. “Do I need to get Cal and Mikey?” Luke asks Ashton ever-so-softly, reaching his hand out to rest on his knee.

Ashton’s head snapped upward, eyes locking on Luke’s hand, making Luke freeze in place. “Don’t touch me,” Ashton croaks, his cold words being strained through his set of gritted teeth. “I need it,” he swallows once more, slipping out from the bed and stumbling to stay on his feet, a sudden rush taking over him and racing to his brain – he felt nauseated, weak, and in need of something else to bring strength back to his body.

“No, no,” Luke protests, scuttling off of the bed and hurrying to stand by Ashton. “You need to lay down, Ashton. Try and take a nap, okay? Let this… let whatever this is wash out of your system.” He tugged on the back of Ashton’s long sleeve shirt, strongly urging him to come to bed.

Ashton pulls out of Luke’s grasp and makes his way to the door, twisting the knob and swinging it open. He hastily makes his way down the somewhat narrow hallway, frantically making his way to the steps descending to the lower level of the house. Ashton’s ears nearly perked at the sound of, not Luke’s dull following footsteps, but Calum and Michael having a conversation.

Ashton, unafraid of them, even after the small incident with aggressively pushing Calum into the wall, straightens his posture and approaches Michael and Calum in the kitchen. They were plucking the rest of the mess off from the counters and the floor, disposing of the mess into the trashcan. The bin was beginning to fill to the brim, and they were going to have to retrieve another garbage bag to toss the rest of the trash away.

Having sensed his upcoming presence since he started descending down the steps, Calum and Michael both paused with their chore, Calum holding a broom and Michael with a dustpan. Calum's eyes were cautious and a bit widened as Ashton approached them.

"Where is it?" Ashton asks, his voice so stern and firm that it sounded as though he was punctuating every word. "Where is my bag?"

Michael opens his mouth to speak and give Ashton some smartass remark, but Calum heroically shoots him imaginary daggers in his direction and interrupts him before he could utter a single syllable. "Why do you need your bag, Ash?" He leans the broom against the counter, knowing not to feed the burning fire that is Ashton by only throwing bitter comments. At the moment, his cheeks were burning, his boiling blood coursing through his veins throughout his entire being. Ashton had an unbelievable level of irritation, and he was about ready to explode.

“You know why,” Ashton says affirmatively. “Just give me my bag. I need it.” Calum decided to ignore Ashton’s clenched fists and the way his knuckles turned a ghostly white.

Calum, silently screaming on the inside and unprepared to fight off his raging friend calmly shakes his head, pressing his lips together to form a thin line. His eyes venture to Luke, who stood approximately five feet away from Ashton, his face contorted into nothing but apprehension and uncertainty. He was unsure of what to do, having failed to keep Ashton’s bitterness to the side or keeping him in bed.

"You shouldn't give in so easily, Ashton," says Calum with a feeble sigh. He laps his tongue over his dry lips, pushing the gradually-filling trash bin aside and tentatively watching Ashton's stiff figure, being very weary of his possible aggression and how he can snap in only a fraction of a second. "Try and take a nap, and let Luke take care of you. You're making this so sudden and it's so unhealthy for you."

"Goddammit!" Ashton barks in a frustrated manner. "Are any of you _listening_ to me?" His hands fly up to his hair, his fingers pulling through his messy pile of locks from atop his head. Clenching down onto handfuls of his own hair, he pulls at them, making his scalp ache from the force. "I'm going  _crazy_ and none of you are understanding that I can't function. I'm an addict, I fucking get it, but give me a little sympathy, will you?" He sighs forcefully. "I'll shut up if you let me take one fucking injection."

As Ashton is releasing his anger and not properly thinking about his rapid and unnecessary behavior, Luke is flinching at every spike in his words and at the fury held within his voice. Tentatively, he shuffles backwards, silently moving as he moves his socks against the hardwood flooring. He backs up until his back is pressed against the wall. Michael notices Luke's cowering behavior and steps forward to console the boy, but Ashton prevents himself from doing so by stepping in his way, his shoulders squared and his hands falling from his head, his clenched fists now dangling by his sides.

Michael, with his face contorted in uncontrollable anger and irritation, finally begins to tear his composure. "Alright," he snaps with a controlling edge held within his voice, "just because you're going through withdrawal symptoms doesn't mean that it gives you the right to purposely be an asshole just to get whatever you want. You're scaring the shit out of Luke, you're pissing me off, and you're wearing off Calum's patience. What else could you possibly want?"

Ashton draws his eyebrows together, his forehead crinkling as he turns his head and observes Luke's tall but almost unnoticeably shivering figure pressed against the wall by the stairs. He ponders over the way Luke is quivering, his hands tucked into the front pockets of his loose joggers to prevent Ashton from being able to notice just how badly he was trembling. For once he wants to show Ashton, his undeniably wonderful and supportive lover, that he can surely stand strong and help support their relationship just as Ashton does. He refuses to let Ashton see his prominent fear of him undergoing such unnerving withdrawal symptoms.

Turning his head back to look at Calum and Michael, his eyes flickering between the two, Ashton shoots them a venomous glare. "I just want another dose - before I get real insane. For the sake of my sanity – please!”

Calum, his nearly unstoppable iron shield now penetrated and his heart throbbing with guilt, lets out an extravagant sigh – he could almost feel his body being lifted into thin air and the regret surging throughout his veins. 

“Fine,” he speaks. 

Michael’s bright eyes widened, staring intensely at Calum as he stood there absolutely thunderstruck as if he had dropped a bomb on them. Michael felt absolutely outraged as Calum made him swear beforehand to not give in to Ashton’s demanding behavior, especially when he’s at his lowest point in withdrawal. Ignoring Michael’s stare, Calum moves across the kitchen, snatching Ashton’s bag that was shoved into the corner alongside with Calum and Michael’s belongings. Calum takes the handles of Ashton’s bag and lifts it up, dropping it down on the countertop. He could swear that he heard Ashton growl at the intense force Calum applied to his actions, but he decided to ignore his bothersome and rather childish behavior.

Calum dug around within the messy bunch of clothing and the occasional piece of toiletry, eventually discovering a small wooden box. As he pulled it out from the bag, Calum let his eyes observe the dark stained wood, the gold hinges to the lift, and momentarily glances at the words engraved into the sides and top of the hardwood before he had it snatched away from his hands. Calum’s head snapped up at the speed of lightening when his hands felt empty. His heart fell into his stomach as he made eye contact with Ashton.

Ashton’s ordinarily warm honey eyes became murky and vindictive, an obscure and foreign presence taking place of Ashton. Calum couldn’t recognize the person he was looking at – he was just having a casual and somewhat heartfelt conversation with this person a couple of hours ago in the earlier afternoon over some lunch. Now that his body is being drained of the warm high he was once filled with, he’s become an entirely different person. Just his presence feels off, and not just Calum that takes notice of this.

Luke, forcing himself to stand tall and to rely on his feet properly, comes over behind Ashton, his hesitant hand reaching out for Ashton’s arm. Ashton’s cold eyes were remaining locked in their bitter hold on Calum, even as Luke’s sweaty hand clasps around his free wrist, tugging insistently in the direction of the steps leading to the second floor. Now that Ashton has received what he wanted, Luke wants to return to their room and to help coax Ashton back down to his normal self – to drown the evil presence that had taken place of him.

“Let’s go, babe,” Luke says softly, his voice sweet and resembling the consistency of golden honey. “Let’s go upstairs. You should probably take a shower, maybe a bath.” Luke tightened his hand around Ashton’s grip and delivered a firmer tug, demanding to gain Ashton’s attention. Once Ashton turned his head and met eyes with Luke, he gives a curt nod and follows the blonde and lanky boy up the steps, their fingers tightly intertwined.

~|~

Ashton’s senses felt amplified – he could see, hear, smell, and sense everything much more clearly now that he had injected himself with another much-needed dose of heroin. The drug was coursing throughout his bloodstream, making him feel warm and fuzzy. Ashton now feels at ease. He’s no longer irritable, annoyed, and doesn’t feel the need for another dosage until he becomes drained of this round.

Now he was sitting on the built-in step within the shower, Luke’s hands rubbing body wash into his tense shoulders as the warm water cascaded over their bare bodies. Luke would run his plump lips across Ashton’s shoulders, slowly dragging them along the sensitive flesh of Ashton’s neck and to the juncture where his neck met his well-formed jaw. He would drop a soft his to the sharp angle of Ashton’s jaw and begin to pepper kisses and drag his lips down across Ashton’s shoulder and the back of his neck. Needless to say, he was soothing Ashton and was turning the boy into putty within his hands. Ashton’s anger is no longer present.

“I’m sorry,” Ashton breaks the silence, finding the sounds of the steaming hot running water from the shower head much too quiet. “It wasn’t necessary for you to see me like that. And I am so, so sorry for lashing out on you. You deserve so much better than my shitty attitude.” Ashton sighs, his eyelids slowly cracking open. He was almost so entirely immersed into the pleasure of Luke kneading into his shoulders that he could have fallen asleep.

Luke pulled away from Ashton’s neck, his eyes flickering over Ashton’s features, absorbing every small detail and branding them in the back of his brain, as if for safe keeping. Luke’s hands massaged their way up Ashton’s shoulders to his neck, Luke’s calloused and skilled fingertips firmly running circles into the back of Ashton’s neck and gradually weaving their way through his messy hair. He remained quiet for the moment, dropping a sweet kiss onto Ashton’s cheek, decorated with his short and growing stubble.

While he was still playing with Ashton’s ringlets, Luke let out a feeble sigh and repositioned his body on the seat, his bare chest meeting Ashton’s muscular back. “I’m going to be here for you,” he says most assuredly. “Even if I’m not going to like what I see, I am going to be there to support you, because I love you and I don’t want to throw away a potential lifetime with you.”

Meanwhile Ashton and Luke were close and immersive in one another in their shower, Calum and Michael were leaning their forearms on the kitchen counter, both staring off in thought. The kitchen had been cleaned and the trash has been taken out. As of now, they were stumped – finding difficulty in a solution to Ashton’s unhealthy addiction.

“We need a counselor,” Calum sighs, using his forefinger and thumb to pinch the bridge of his nose. “It’s damn obvious that we can’t do anything to help him. We’re going to make him worse.”

Michael, releasing his bottom lip from his teeth, sighs. He nods in agreement and pushes back some stray red hairs from his eyes. “I can call someone, but we’re going to need help getting Ashton to those meetings.” Raising his eyebrows and meeting gaze with Calum, Michael lets his teeth sink into his lower lip once more.

Calum groans, running his hands down his face. “I’ll talk to Luke tomorrow morning.”


	5. Right Back At It Again

"I'm going to hurt you," Luke sighs, pulling his fingers through his flat, disheveled locks of blonde bedhair. Luke refuses to make eye contact with Calum as he delivers the somewhat secretive plan to him. Of course, he's supportive of the decision that was made, even without Ashton's consent, but he hates to imagine being the one to deliver such news to Ashton. Things are becoming tolerable again between the two. 

"Why can't you tell him? Take him out to lunch or something – I don't care. I just don't want to be around to witness his overreaction first hand." Luke drags his fingertips across the countertop. "I don't want the one that Ashton's angry at. Especially when I just got him back, and we're just starting to patch things up."

Calum flashed Luke a dour look. His forehead crinkled, his lips pressing together and angled in a manner that made his face look crooked. "Don't just assume that I am purposely trying to offend you, but you're an idiot." He says, moving around the kitchen to locate a writing pad and a pen. "I understand what happened between the both of you some-odd days ago, but you need to stand by him. Even when he may be the most intimidating son of a bitch."

He was pulling out drawers until he finally located a yellow writing pad and a fine tip Sharpie marker. _Cl_ _ose enough_ , Calum thinks to himself. He pulled a stool out and sat himself on it, scooting into the bar counter and leaning on the cool surface by his forearms. Luke's eyes are perfectly fixated on Calum as he pops off the cap to the marker, testing it by scribbling it on the corner of the paper.

"I guess that's a good point," Luke sighs. His shoulders deflated and he makes his way to the coffee maker as it beeped obnoxiously in signal for it's finished brewing. Pulling a mug out from the cupboard and placing on the surface, Luke takes the coffee pot out from its station and pours himself a steaming cup of black coffee, a fountain of dark soil, he always thought as a child. He crinkles his nose at the thought of drinking it black, the bitterness spreading over the plane of his tongue and making his tastebuds begging for mercy. It always had him question why he still drank it, even though he shoots it with overloads of sugar.

"Of course it's a good point," says Calum confidently. He snaps his head up, watching Luke with a small smile as he takes the warm mug by the handle, lifting it to his nose and sniffing the strong liquid as it's steam rose into the air and evaporated. "You might want to write a soliloquy devoting your love for him if you want him to agree to attend the classes without having to drag him by the ankles with a towing truck."

Luke shoots Calum a poisonous glare. "It's not funny," he murmurs bitterly. He placed the mug back down on the counter, shuffling towards the fridge and staring bewilderedly at the empty shelves and rows of vast space. "We need coffee creamer," he says, his eyebrows furrowed in slight irritation.

"Sugar should suffice," Calum says, scribbling down Luke's request on the list. "Unless you're too wimpy to face the black coffee for yourself. Then I suppose you aren't so hardcore as you argue."

Luke ignores Calum's childish and antagonizing ways, closing the fridge door and searching through the cabinets. He filed through many bags of half-eaten chips and other small snacks that have most likely surpasses their expiration date and are sitting there so go stale. Finding nothing that grabbed his direct attention, he randomly selected a box of some strange cookie wafers that Ashton has been having a strange craving for lately. Pulling them out from the shelf, he opens the box and folds back the flaps, digging his hand in to retrieve one of the three plastic cylinders. He empties the pack of over two dozen cookies onto a paper plate, his mouth watering at the desire for sugar on his tongue.

"How am I going to tell him?" Luke says, picking up one of the many wafers upon his plate. After popping it into his mouth and slowly chewing to savor the sweet flavor, Luke slides the plate in between him and Calum. He could only hope that Calum could be of some help. "If he's acted the way he did over you hiding his stash, then how am I going to convince him about attending a class for teenage addicts?"

"Did you consider writing him a soliloquy longer than all of the Harry Potter books combined?" Calum says, arching a single eyebrow in Luke's direction, pulling his best poker face in hopes of getting a smile to rise upon Luke's soft frowning lips.

Luke simply glares at the boy, delivering a heavy huff. "You're not going to give me a serious answer, are you?"

"But I am answering seriously-,"

" _Calum_ ," Luke groans. "Don't be a dick."

Calum, rolling his eyes at Luke's pleas for help, straightens his posture and takes a handful of the wafers from the plate that sat before him. "I don't think there are many ways, Luke. I mean, it would probably mean more to him if you simply told him." He shrugs his shoulders, dropping the small cookies into his mouth. 

"When am I ever going to get help," Luke grumbles into his palms, his hands slowly running up his face and driving through his hair once again in an exasperated manner. He grips onto chunks of his unstyled locks, pulling at his scalp.

Sighing in defeat, Calum rolls his head as his eyes do the same within his skull, dropping the marker down onto the tablet. He finished his chewing and swallowed, scooting himself forward on his seat. He thumps Luke at the side of his head with his index finger, giving him a sharp but meaningful look. "Listen, and listen to me well, Hemmings."

Luke rubs over the area where Calum flicked him, holding back a vicious sneer. However, despite his burning urge to give Calum a slap upside the head, Luke remained quiet and looked at him firmly, holding a momentary grudge against the boy after flicking him.

"I get it, you're terrified of losing him," Calum begins, being open and bold. "Believe it or not, Michael and I are equally as scared. Ashton is gambling with something that can potentially kill him if he is not careful. If he has too much of one injection, he can slip into a coma – maybe even stop breathing all together. I found that out just last night. If you want what's good for him, you won't back away." Calum points an accusing finger at Luke, raising his eyebrows in a knowing manner. "He needs you now more than he probably ever will."

Luke, swallowing thickly, falls blank. His stomach churns at the thought of Ashton's eyes closing and his lungs failing – he can't picture a world without Ashton's heart beating profoundly. Imagining the world without Ashton is not a world at all to Luke. It's a world without sunshine – a life without that special meaning that everyone is on the consistent hunt for. Luke believes he's found it, and it's already being torn away from him.

"I don't think that I'm strong enough to hold him up if I can't do that for myself," says Luke meekly, his cheeks flushing a deep and obscure velvety red. He scratches at his jaw, a line of stubble itching at his chin.

Calum's shoulders rise and fall, his head shaking in the process. He doesn't know exactly what to say. "This isn't going to be something easy that we all can just pass by," he says, his tongue clicking lightly against the roof of his mouth. "Luke, I can have an idea on just how difficult that it may be for you, but keep in mind that it's going to be even harder to lead Ashton away from heroin for just a day, let alone a week."

"I want to be a better boyfriend to him," says Luke disappointedly. "But I am so paranoid about him holding his hand against me again. Does that sounds stupid?"

Taking the Sharpie back into his hold, Calum flashes Luke a bolstering smile. "No, Luke. But what do you say - how about you shoot out some foods that you need me to get and we can discuss this over some grocery shopping? Yeah?"

~|~

Luke, feeling far too anxious to admit to Ashton their true destination, keeps the addicts group classified between him, Michael, and Calum over the past couple of weeks. The both of them, Calum and Michael, had discouraged Luke's plan when he announced it to them, but Luke continued onward with it anyways. He didn't gain the confidence within himself to spill the beans to Ashton. He was too self-conscious – he didn't want Ashton to get the wrong idea, and he certainly didn't want him to jump into irrational conclusions.

"Where the hell are we going?" Ashton asks, his head falling back and knocking a bit harshly into his head rest. He rolls his head to the side, switching his gaze between Luke and the scenery outside of his window in the front passenger's seat, scenes of downtown blurring past them. "You said that we were stopping at a diner in the middle of town."

Smacking a false smile to his lips, Luke nods, leading Ashton on for as long as he possibly could. His eyes glanced at the time on the dashboard – he has about five minutes before the meeting starts. He doesn't want to be late, as he insured the instructor and group leader that he would have Ashton there at a punctual time – guaranteed.

"We'll get there, Ash," Luke says, delivering a gentle squeeze to his thigh. "I just need a bit of your patience." He gave Ashton's clothed knee another pat before returning his one hand to the wheel alongside with the other. He was used to driving with one hand on the wheel, like he preferred, but he didn't want his boyfriend to notice the violent quivering of his hands. If it weren't for the snapback placed on Luke's head, Ashton would certainly notice that he is sweating bullets.

"I never knew about any diners this far into the city," says Ashton, his brow furrowing, situating himself in a better position in his seat. "And I live here."

Luke stopped his car at a red light at an intersection, the small _click_ of his turning signal acting as the only sound to fill the silence between them both. He remained quiet, letting Ashton bathe himself in the stillness. Eventually, Ashton turned in his seat, just as Luke made a left when the light turned green.

"We're not going out to eat, are we?" Ashton asks, his eyes narrowing in curiosity in Luke's direction. He took the muteness as the most excruciating answer possible. "If we're not going out to eat, then where the hell are we going? This isn't some stupid effort in kidnapping me, right? Luke, we live together."

"Just be quiet, please," Luke says softly, Ashton being of no help to his erratic nerves. His fingertips were tingling – his legs were quivering. Needless to say, if Luke needed to step out of the car, he would more than likely collapse instantaneously after trying to apply his body weight to his knees. He feels much too wobbly to do so. He feels as though he is incapable of standing up against Ashton if it was necessary.

As for Ashton himself, he could feel his heart sink into his stomach, almost like it's being digested in the fire burning pit of acid. Has he done something wrong? Did he say something hurtful to Luke recently that he hasn't apologized for? Retracing his steps this morning, he assumed that everything was normal. Things had been somewhat tolerable the last couple of weeks.

But as time flew, Luke has gotten more jittery about things - more often than he should be. Ashton could always feel an anxious vibe radiating from him. Ashton mentally slaps his hand to his forehead. He should've known that something was up between Luke and the other boys. They've been hiding something behind Ashton's back, and he doesn't appreciate the secret being concealed from him by all three of them.

Even if he wants to get to the bottom of the situation, Ashton manages to restrain himself from any bubbling-over outbursts that were raging to escape from within him. He simply folds his arms across his chest and observes where Luke was heading – where he intends on bringing Ashton.

Luke pulls into a half-filled parking lot in front of a Lutheran Church just across the street from a High School building – where Luke, Ashton, Mikey and Cal had graduated from. He sits up straighter, suddenly interested in their exact location. He stares at the church's welcome sign by the entrance, the message below telling all readers to praise the Lord and to visit them on their Sunday sessions for offering.

Ashton slowly turns his head to Luke, his jaw slacked. "Don't tell me..." he trails off, not finding the need to continue his sentence. He knows what this is.

"We had to do something," Luke says softly, following a heartbreaking sigh. "Mike, Cal and I are all really worried about you, Ash. We're clearly not enough motivation for you to stop what you're doing to yourself, but maybe if you talked to others who go through similar things, then we might have a better chance in helping you get through this."

"So you hid this from me and thought that if you dragged me here that I would attend?" Ashton strains his words through his set of grit teeth. His jaw was aching, his face scrunched in disgust. He couldn't tell whether his anger is originating from the thought that he was too oblivious to notice this plan from Luke himself or if he was just upset that Luke hadn't come clean to him about the meeting in the first place. Either way, Ashton was fuming.

Luke's baby blue eyes continue to hold their gentle gaze on Ashton as he pulls the hair back away from his eyes, silently pleading for him to keep himself collected out in the public. "We're doing what's best for you, Ash. I can't help you alone, and I don't want to be torn away from you because you're addicted to this sabotaging drug and you're being searched for by these untrustworthy dealers. We need to fix this with people who know what they're doing. What's been happening is dangerous."

He let his golden amber eyes lock on Luke's, taking his words into heavy consideration. He knew that Luke wasn't the type of person to keep things from him like this. He hid this plan for a special meaning. Eventually, he broke down and gave up. "Let's go now before I decide to run off and find a place to eat for myself."

A grateful smile brought its way onto Luke's lips, spreading broadly, his teeth sinking down into the metal of his black lip ring. He cut the engine and stuffed his keys into his front pocket, stepping out of the car and slamming the door behind him. Ashton followed suit, his eyes burning into the building that stood mockingly before him. Ashton hated the sight of the complex. He didn't want to know what was planned for him.

When Luke reaches Ashton's side, he grasps onto his lover's hand and led him towards the building. Luke took it slow – he made sure not to rush Ashton in to the structure, but he was simply so overjoyed at the fact that Ashton is agreeing to do this without creating a disturbing brawl in public. Tightly clenching onto Luke's hand, Ashton's eyes flicker to the space around him – observing all of the slightest of details. When he stepped into the church with Luke, his nose crinkled at the potent smell of peppermint and older brands of cologne.

Sadly, he cannot remember the last time that he has attended a church service. He was about to tell this to Luke without applying much thought to it, but Ashton quickly seals his lips shut. He does not want to be involved in anything else after this addicts meeting that Luke snuck him to. He still couldn't get over it.

Traveling through the hallways of the church, Luke had some difficulty locating the teen addicts group, but eventually he stumbled upon a fairly spacey room, people his and Ashton's age arranging chairs into a nearly perfect circle. A paper was taped onto the wall by the open doorway, reading in a neat and fairly girly handwriting: Chloe's Teen Addicts Group meeting attends here!

Luke and Ashton exchange a brief glance before Luke had to encourage Ashton into the room. Soft music was playing in the corner of the room – most likely playing today's top hits, but neither of the boys bothered to tune in and figure it out for themselves. Ashton's sweaty palm escaped from Luke's grasp, running nervously on his thigh to brush away the sweat on his jeans. After doing so, he then slips both of his hands into his front jacket pockets. He swallows thickly as he looks over the individuals taking part in this group – they all seem like everyday people that take part in their community. All of them were chatting endlessly as if they'd all known each other from birth.

"Hey!" A female voice squeaks from the corner of the room, immediately grabbing both of Luke and Ashton's attention. She has lifted her head once she placed a chair amongst the circle in the midst of the spacious room, a bright smile taking over a majority of her small and angled face. Her cheekbones were prominent, her eyebrows dark and clearly look like they have been waxed - they contrasted against her milky white skin. This girl has thick dark auburn hair that's pulled back by an elastic band, the heavy ringlets cascading down her back in a manner that relates slightly to a waterfall.

Her eyes were bright and they are most assuredly full of life. A glimmer of sharp light reflected in the corner of her golden brown eyes, bringing a genuine smile to Luke's face. Ashton didn't smile.

She gracefully makes her way over to her new guests, effortlessly coming off as the leader of the group – the person who advances and is the one who guides everyone and helps them find their meaning and the correct path they should follow. She reaches out and grasps onto Luke's hand, firmly shaking.

"It's nice to meet you," she says optimistically. "My name is Isadora, but please call be Izzy. You must be Luke," her eyes trail to the boy standing closely beside him, "and you must be Ashton." She offers her hand to Ashton, but he hesitates. Luke sharply nudges Ashton in the ribcage, giving him a push forward. Izzy and Ashton shake hands – Ashton's grip timid but Izzy's coming off as very powerful.

"We're just about to begin the meeting," she says, her eyes averting between the others taking their seats and the new addition to her group. "You can take a seat anywhere you'd like. We're all friendly – and we don't bite." With that being said, Izzy turns away and strides towards the circle of chairs, taking a spot between a small female and a muscular male.

Luke helps Ashton step forward with his hand on the small of his back, encouraging him forward. As soon as he took steps forward, he took an empty seat beside a messy teen boy who was dressed lazily in a pair of grey sweats, Nike sneakers, and a sweatshirt from a typical popular clothing shop especially designed for teenagers. Luke automatically takes a seat beside Ashton, his own eyes taking in his new surroundings.

"Now that we're settled," says Izzy, resting her hands on her knees, "I would love to introduce a new member of the group today. His name his Ashton, and this is his lovely friend, Luke." Izzy gestures her kind kindly in the direction that they sat in. Luke flashes a quick smile. Ashton forgets to smile, only nodding once in acknowledgement. He can't smile.

Luke and Ashton were hit with a few greetings spoken in unison by the other members of the group. Luke gives the cluster of people a small wave, following a soft 'hello'. Ashton presses his lips together, mumbling a small greeting for himself. His cheeks were burning and flushing a dark an almost embarrassing shade red. He wanted to avoid eye contact with everyone around him – including Luke. Suddenly he became quiet and exclusive.

He lets his fingers intertwine into a fist and rests his forearms onto his knees, his posture somewhat crouched with his head falling, his eyes focused on the ugly carpet beneath his feet. He feels embarrassed to be here. He feels disappointed in himself because he has let these things reach this sort of high. Now he has to attend a group for addicts because he's so hooked. Heroin took Ashton by the neck and is beginning to strangle him, owning complete control over his mind and body.

"Would you like to tell us all a little bit about yourself?" Izzy says, her lively eyes trained upon Ashton's figure. "We'd love to get to know you."

Slowly but surely, Ashton raises his head. This time he built up the courage to glance around the circle, swallowing nervously as nearly all of the other member's eyes were landed upon him. He lets his thumb brush over his knuckles and begins to bounce his knee. He didn't feel the necessity for him to open up to a group of strangers – a handful of people that won't show the least bit of worry for him in the future. It isn't their job to care about his problems.

Ashton's silence seems to be a delay in the conversation, creating an uncomfortable atmosphere. Members within the group began to look amongst one another. All of them were beginning to think: _What's wrong with him?_

Luke, finding Ashton's fit of silence quite alarming, straightens himself out and nudges Ashton in the side with his elbow, nearly in the exact same area as he has done earlier. Ashton stutters at this, clearing his throat by coughing into his fist.

"Yeah," says Ashton, abruptly realizing that he has been asked a question. After wetting his dry lips, he began to speak ever-so leisurely, making sure that all who were listening would understand his dismay for being here. "My name's Ashton, and I work as a musician in a band with three idiots I call friends. I'm a fuck-up who got himself addicted to shooting heroin because I can't find anything else better to do with myself. Sometimes I can't find the energy in myself to give a shit about it." He stops, leaning himself back into his chair. He folds his arms across his brawny chest. "My boyfriend, Luke," he nods to the blonde boy beside him, "is the one who dragged me here without my consent. He told me that we were going out to eat for dinner. By the looks of it, it didn't seem to go out that way. I feel a little upset over that."

Izzy's smile gradually melted from her face the longer that Ashton displayed his displeasure of attendance. As he finished speaking briefly about small and unmeaningful details, Izzy blinked rapidly and sat herself back. She took a breath inward, trying to rapidly rack throughout her brain for an appropriate remark. It took her a few moments to collect herself, but she managed.

"I'm sure that you'll find yourself comfortable here after a few discussions with us," Izzy says. "It takes a while to open up to people, and I can totally understand from your perspective that opening up to people you don't particularly know isn't very luxurious from the start. I can assure you that you'll find yourself at home-,"

"I'm sure I will," Ashton bites back sourly, allowing sarcasm to lace through his venomous words, his eyes rolling at the same time. He flicks a few ringlets of his hair out from his eyes, his foot tapping against the floor. "I don't know about you, but I like to keep my life,  _my_ life. No one else as the right to know about what goes on in my everyday routine. It shouldn't matter to them."

Luke wants to believe that the words that had just slipped from Ashton's mouth had said was all in his head - just a ridiculous illusion to mess with his thinking process. However, he knew that he was living in the present. Is this what he really thought about when Luke told him that they were going to attend this meeting in the church parking lot? Luke's hand covered his mouth, his eyes pinching shut. This was another unintentional blow to his heart, Ashton's hands twisting and slowly ripping it apart.

Ashton was far too caught up in his own problems to take Luke's feelings into thought. He fell silent, and so did Izzy. Even she didn't know how to reply to Ashton's words. She couldn't process this – she was unable to find out for herself why he was so bitter about this. He really didn't want help from here, did he?

She claps her hands together, taking a quick breath inward. "Well," she begins, looking around amongst the group. "Let's start, shall we?"

~|~  
  


"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Luke spits, storming out from the church.

His hands were balled into fists, stuffed into his front pockets. He kept his head down as he took hurried steps out from the church. He was in complete disbelief from Ashton's behavior. Luke wanted to grab Ashton tightly by his shoulders and to violently shake some sort of sense into him, but he resisted the urge to do so. He didn't even want to look him in the eye. If he did, he was afraid to see red. Nothing but bloody red.

"Stop," Ashton pleads, hot on Luke's heels, his hand reaching out to rest on Luke's shoulder. "Luke, can you stop for one and listen to what I have to say?" Ashton himself was beginning to grow a little impatient with him. He wanted Luke to hear him out – to get into his brain and to try to comprehend what he was thinking.

As soon as his insistent hand landed on Luke's shoulder, the blonde boy snapped around, aggressively slapping away Ashton's hand. His stare was hot, just like burning coals, causing for Ashton in reaction to wince and stumble back for a fraction of second. It terrified him at the least – he has never seen Luke with such a nasty look sitting upon his face, especially directed towards him. He was always settled as the most composed person when he was raging. Apparently, Ashton knows nothing about Luke being livid.

"You twat," Luke bites. "You've already said what you wanted to say in there. I understand completely now."

Ashton, his mouth agape and breathing slightly rapidly and heavily, shakes his head and falls back down to Earth. He suddenly feels as though he's run out of breath. "No, Luke, please-," he was pleading as of now – asking and begging for forgiveness. Even as desperate as he is, he knows that he is unworthy of Luke's mercy at this point in time. He almost forgets how reckless he was back in the room with all of the other members. Suddenly, it all became so important to him.

"Shut up," Luke cries. "Call me when you stop acting like a fucking asshole. I'm going home." Luke turns away, hiding the relentless tears as they embarrassingly streamed down his flaming hot cheeks. "Get a cab or take the public bus." Luke, having fished his car keys out from his pocket, steps into his car and starts the engine. Without giving Ashton one last glance, he pulls out of the space his car sat in and speeds out from the parking lot, heading in the direction that leads to nowhere else but a place called home.

Ashton stood frozen in his place, absolutely incredulous of what had just happened. He felt as though he had been run over by an overpowering force and ad been pummeled six feet into the ground. Guilt is boiling over within his stomach because he really was oblivious to what he has done and said until the damage had actually happened. He couldn't properly move a muscle until Luke's car disappeared from his sight. His mouth clamps shut, and he retraces his steps, walking back into the church.

 _How the hell am I going to fix this_? Ashton thinks to himself, rushing through the narrow hallways and making his way back to the room of which the meeting was once held. As he arrived to the room, the first thing that he noticed was the emptiness – everyone had cleared out and left to return home to their daily lives. Everyone but Izzy had left.

Izzy was shuffling around the room, folding the chairs and placing them in their original place in the corner of the room, sandwiching them in between a wall and a foldable table. She was humming an upbeat tone to herself, and all that Ashton could do was to stand there and watch until she gasped, her heart flying into her throat. She was certainly taken aback by Ashton's quiet presence at the doorway, her hand flying to her chest and over her heart.

"Hello, Ashton," she says, exhaling in a dramatic manner. "Do you need something? Has Luke forgotten something in the room? Someone did leave their jacket hanging in the coat rack." She turns, resuming her task at hand, the metal chairs clanking against one another in an annoying manner.

Ashton clears his throat, shaking his head, staring down at that god-awful carpet below his feet. He disliked the idea of crawling back to such an amazing and empathetic person to plea for help after he has selfishly disrespected her already during the beginning of the meeting. He slowly takes steps towards Izzy, flashing her a weak and apologetic smile. Her face twists in confusion.

"Are you alright, Ashton?" Izzy asks with the utmost concern in her voice. She reaches out and lays a gentle hand on his shoulder, looking into his eyes. She sensed pain, regret, and many other various emotions that could display his discomfort.

He slowly shakes his head. "I need help," he says, his voice cracking in the middle. He could feel his throat constricting and his eyes stinging. He was going to cry, but he didn't want to admit that directly in front of the instructor. A disembodied voice in the back of Ashton's mind told his opposing side that it was okay to show weakness. Even with this sign of encouragement from himself, he couldn't build the nerve to speak further.

Izzy takes Ashton's wrist and coaxes him to a chair, allowing him to sit down as fat tears rolled mercilessly down his glowing cheeks. He's finally letting himself crumble down to his knees. Ashton knows that he needs a moment to himself in which he needs to cry. Izzy knelt beside him, her hand running up and down his back in a comforting manner. His shoulders jumped as small sobs fell from his lips. He could feel his nose beginning to run.

"It's okay for you to cry, Ashton," she says in a manner that resembles the sweetness of honey. "You must have been holding all of this in for a while if you're only beginning to just know realize how much this is upsetting you."

Swallowing down a cry, Ashton stutters, his liability to speak becoming a struggle. "I need help," he says, concealing his face by covering it with his clammy hands. "My relationship with Luke is falling apart, my friends are scared of me, and I don't even know who I am anymore."

She simply sat there and listened to what Ashton had to say, continuing to run her hand up and down his back as he cried into his hands. She nodded, never tearing her eyes away from his quivering frame. This was all a surprise to Izzy. Ashton came off to be an independent and dominant male who likes to have control over the things that influence his life choices. She's just met him, and he's left a strong first impression on her.

To see this for herself, to see him falling apart before her when he doesn't even know her, makes the situation all the more pathetic. He found that he cannot find proper help to the people close to him, but the strangers around him.

"Hey," Izzy says, gently taking Ashton by his wrists and ever-so-lightly prying them away from his face. She reveals his puffy face, the red blotches over his skin, and the wetness by his eyes. "I'm here," she says, assuring him the most. "I'm here for you, and you can tell me anything that you want to tell me."

She manages to get a small smile to edge its way onto Ashton's lips.

"I will help you. That's what I am here for."


	6. Something That I'm Not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey!! There's boyonboy stuff in here, so beware!! I didn't really edit this at all so sorry if it sucks ((:

Once a fuming Luke returned home, he immediately decided to avoid both Michael and Calum diverts his path to his room – their room, but it’s not like Ashton spends much time at home anymore. His boiling rage was too fierce to try and converse with anyone at the moment.

Despite Luke’s hopes for Michael and Calum to be out elsewhere, right when he walked in through the front door, the two of them had both turned their heads away from the brand new television screen, watching as Luke's stiff figure made his way inside. As soon as they began to interrogate him from a distance with an overwhelming source of inquisitiveness, all Luke did was remain quiet and peel his jacket off from his shoulders, dropping it onto the coat hanger by the front door. He drops his keys into the bowl, producing a clinking sound that spiked in their ears.

Michael and Calum exchanged suspicious glances, slowly averting their wondering eyes back to Luke as he silently ambles his way to the staircase leading to the second floor. They noticed that Ashton's presence was a mystery, but they decided that it would be best to leave the boy alone for the time being. After all, he obviously appeared to be running livid with some sort of mute anger, possibly triggered by Ashton's stubborn ways. The fury from Luke was practically radiating off of his figure.

 Neither Michael nor Calum will be looking forward to the conversation that they will have to initiate once Luke's nerves have been soothed.

"Do you think I should call Ashton?" Michael proposes tentatively, making it appear incredibly palpable to Calum that he was unsure of what to do with the outwardly concerning dilemma at hand.

He was acting a little different on the situation than how Calum was. He wants to take action immediately, but Michael also wants to leave the problem where it is so that it could be solved strictly between Ashton and Luke. After all, it's _their_ relationship that needs to be fixed. Neither of them can affectively help them in that sort of way.

At first, Calum began to shake his head in a deliberately slow manner as he thought through the possibilities of Luke's quiet yet sour attitude. He was making a mental list of ways that Ashton could have pissed Luke off to make him behave in this way. Producing the possibilities made his brain beg for mercy.

"I think it would be best if we leave this were it is right now," Calum says somewhat quietly, boosting himself off from the bare floor. "Maybe we should go out for a while. They're going to need some privacy. Let's catch a movie or something, yeah?"

~|~

Luke felt like his head was spinning and the pressure within his skull would do nothing but increase more that he thought. He claims to an anonymous form that his frustration is understated. No words can exclaim his true rage. He needed to take action of his anger, and he was determined to make a change in Ashton's life. Even if it means crossing the line with him, he will do everything within his power to keep Ashton from hurting himself.

Luke stripped their bedroom bare. He tore Ashton's old clothing out from his half of the closet, tearing them off from their hangers. Despite their fair but not very overwhelming income in cash, Ashton still refuses to purchase new clothing. He proclaims to Luke many times that he adores his holey shirts and coats. Luke despised them, so he ripped them from their place and began making a pile on the floor, belligerently tossing the articles of clothing to the growing pile. Their unappealing look reminds him of the dark shadows that Ashton lingered in when he first began taking drugs.

Luke's nose crinkles as he flings the last ragged tank top to the pile, kicking them off to the side by the closed door. Over half of Ashton's wardrobe had been torn off from their place within the closet, and Luke cannot find a single damn to care about how Ashton will react once he realizes it. Nothing can possibly hurt him more than the possibility of Ashton becoming unaccepting of his help. He doesn't want Ashton to deny his efforts to get healthy again.

After retrieving a garbage bag from the bathroom connected to the bedroom, Luke tossed all of the clothing to the bag, filling it to the brim. He twisted it shut and managed to stuff it underneath the bed, making sure to leave it there for him to get rid of the clothing at some point in time. Perhaps he'll burn them, he thinks, but he'll figure it all out for himself when the time approaches.

He begins to raid though the room once again. The only difference about this search is that he's locating an all-too familiar box that Ashton uses. It's his collection of heroin, and it must be thinning out by now, and Ashton is doomed to find a way to get a hold of more at some time. While Luke had the opportunity to do so, he was going to locate the wooden box and dispose of its contents just to show Ashton how far he is willing to go to let him know that he is not looking for any monkey business.

He's snooped through all of the drawers, all of the cabinets, all of the vanities, all of the small corners... There's no sight of the small box. He thinks to himself that he might be looking too hard. He's looking in all of the obvious places within the house. Maybe Ashton hid it in the glove compartment of his car. With that thought in mind, Luke ceased his look for the small container of drugs and took a seat on the foot of the bed.

He tangled his fingers through his head of messy hair, completely tearing down the quiff that he once built for attending Ashton's first therapy session. He kept combing his long fingers through it until it went flat and his hair flopped down onto his forehead, the tips of the exhausted waves tickling his forehead. He released a heavy sigh, his shoulders deflating.

Just as he was going to lose hope and head into the bathroom to the shower, Luke froze in place as his ears perked at the sound of the front door creaking open. He was aware of Michael and Calum's departure earlier on, so this could only lead to one other conclusion: Ashton. He’s returned home.

Luke immediately scrambles through the room, returning everything that has been so much as touched or moved to its original placement. He grabs some of his shower belongings and clings them to his chest, plucking various items of comfortable clothing out from the closet.

"Luke," Ashton's voice calls out, his homey voice bouncing off the walls and being carried out through the hallways. "Luke, babe?" His voice is all too silky for Luke to resist calling back to.

"Upstairs," Luke returns. He quickens his movements to the speed of lightning, leaning himself on the edge of the mattress as he begins to peel off his socks from his feet and tosses them quickly into the hamper. Unfortunately, just before he was able to escape and lock himself in the bathroom, Ashton enters the bedroom, his facial expression soft and warm as his eyes fell on Luke.

Ashton approaches Luke with little caution, causing for the blonde boy to stop in the midst of his actions. He reaches out and takes a feeble hold of Luke's significantly smaller hand, his lips pressing dozens kisses to his knuckles. Luke's eyebrows furrow at this, his head cocking to the side as Ashton's lips continue to decorate kisses all across the skin of his hands, fire licking his skin.

"I'm so sorry," he says, parting his lips away from Luke's hand. Before he was given the chance to speak in wonder of Ashton's loving behavior, Ashton lunges forward and cups Luke's face into his large hands, his thumbs running over the gentle bump of his cheekbones, relishing in the soft skin.

"Ashton?" Luke questions, his forehead still scrunched in confusion.

Luke's lips are enveloped in warmth just as soon as Ashton closes the space between them. Luke found himself soaking in the love and adoration that Ashton was throwing suddenly towards him, humming in encouragement to Ashton's kisses. His wandering hands found Ashton's shoulders, feeling the need to push his needy body away. His mind was flooding with too many questions to be left unanswered.

However, Ashton and his attention is much too overpowering. Luke cannot dare to compete against Ashton's muscles. Instead, he lets his body melt and relax as Ashton's body plows over him, laying him down onto the mattress. Their lips slotted together perfectly like two pieces to a jigsaw puzzle, their lips growing red and swollen as their desperate tongues brushed against one another.

Luke's hands grasped onto the material of Ashton's jacket, a signal for Ashton to shake it off from his shoulders. Ashton quickly caught onto his motions and dropped the material to the floor, also grabbing his tee shirt by the hem and peeling it off from his torso, tossing it down carelessly to the floor below.

The blonde boy's hands caught Ashton's face once again, making it blatantly obvious to Ashton that now that it has started that he refuses to stop. Luke licks into Ashton's mouth, exploring all around to places that he's been plenty of times before, his fingers filing through his boyfriend's messy head of golden locks.

A wandering hand belonging to Ashton travels underneath Luke's shirt, his fingers caressing every soft ripples of Luke's abdomen, his thumb running circles just underneath Luke's right pec. The younger boy groans into his lover's mouth, slowly sitting himself up to press farther into Ashton's mouth and to keep their wild session strong.

"I love you," Ashton murmurs amorously as he detaches his mouth away from Luke's, kissing messily down the warm flesh of Luke's neck and locating his sensitive spot just underneath his earlobe. Luke's teeth bite down firmly into the metal of his lip ring, muffling a small groan that just barely slips out from his mouth.

Luke lets himself rest back into the plush mattress, sighing in content as Ashton dominates over him, suckling on his skin and creating various bruises around his neck. Luke's pale skin was his canvas, and he's intentionally covering his lover's neck with many bruises to show many that he's taken - proclaimed strictly by Ashton himself.

Suddenly, it's like he's slammed himself into a wall. Luke remembers everything before Ashton's return home, and his blood immediately begins to boil as his thick blood courses hotly through his veins. Luke takes Ashton by the shoulders and applies as much force as he could muster, delivering a harsh shove. Once he had Ashton pinned to the mattress, now taking charge, Luke sheds of his shirt and lets it fall to the ground to join Ashton’s clothing.

"Luke," Ashton breathes, his honey amber eyes blown wide at Luke's sudden force, his mind curious as to what exactly was his source of aggression at such a sudden moment in time. His heart flutters within his chest, a graceful smile spreading on his lips.

"Shut up, you ungrateful asshole," Luke growls, grinding his lips down against Ashton, making his movements excruciatingly slow and suspenseful. Luke presses his hand on the valley between his pecs, barely curling his fingers to dig his dull fingernails into his chest.

Ashton's eyebrow narrowly raised upward at this, a small curl remaining at the corner of his lips. "You're a little passionate about-,"

Luke interrupts him by slotting their lips together, passionately moving their lips together. Ashton pulls away from the kiss, momentarily panting into Luke's agape mouth. Luke's hips ground down in just the right way with the right amount of pressure, with the right angle, and with the right kind of confidence. This emits and frustrated grown from Ashton, his forehead crinkled as his eyes flicker down to their bulges grinding down on one another.

He feels suffocated within his pants and briefs, his tongue running across his bottom lip. The sight of their most sensitive areas pressed against one another kicks another sudden burst of arousal through Ashton, causing for him to run his fingers through Luke's hair, pulling back some falling hairs.

"Fuck, babe," Ashton drawls, leaning himself forward to nibble on Luke's earlobe, his tongue soothing over the reddened skin almost immediately afterwards. "Take some clothes off."

Luke, nearly salivating at the sight of Ashton's abdomen muscles rippling as pleasure rushes to his groin, begins to fumble with the buttons on Ashton's skinny jeans, unzipping them and tugging them down his pants until they caught at his ankles. Ashton took it from there, using his feet to help the other kick off his jeans to the floor. As Ashton discarded his pants, Luke worked at his own and let them fall nearby with Ashton's.

They quickly resumed their heated kissing, their tongues sliding across one another and battling for some sort of undeclared fight for dominance. Heat is coiling in the pit of their stomachs as Luke restarts his firm grinding down onto Ashton's hips, their hardening members strained from behind their dark briefs. They both felt as though they were being teased by the pleasurable yet unsatisfying rubbing of the cotton and outline of the other's erection.

Ashton's hands ventured along Luke's torso, his fingertips firmly curling in to his hips and pulling him in closer, momentarily freezing him from the movement of his urgent hips. With his thumbs, Ashton pulls down Luke's briefs, revealing Luke's pulsating member, a bead of precompiled leaking from the swollen tip. Without tearing his gaze from Luke's enticing eyes, Ashton helps his lover slip out entirely from his suffocating briefs and grabbed firmly onto the base of his thickening member, running the pad of his thumb across the sensitive underside.

A pant began to form out of habit from Luke, his red-kissed lips leaning forward to capture Ashton's into a needy kiss. As Ashton slowly pumped Luke within his strong and assuring hold, Ashton used his other hand to slowly slip himself out from his briefs. Once freed from his confinements, Ashton released Luke and shoved him down onto the mattress.

Luke grunted softly as his body made contact with the soft cushioning of the bed, his electric baby blue eyes gazing lustfully at his partner above him. He refuses to admit it to himself, but he cannot hold a consistent grudge against Ashton. In Luke's perspective, Ashton is still nothing but the bubbly and messy-haired Aussie boy with a never ending supply of love and affection. Beneath the mysteriously saddened boy abusing drugs for what he thinks is the better, Luke secretly knows that he is buried in there.

He isn't allowed to lose hope.

Ashton dips his head down, pressing heated kiss and long Luke's navel, his hot and irresistible breath washing over Luke's pulsating cock. Luke swallows down an imaginary lump in his throat, watching from his leverage of pillows as Ashton closes in to where he wanted him most.

Ashton flattens his hot tongue against the base of Luke's member, slowly ascending to the tip were he encloses his mouth, sucking gingerly on the sensitive tip, his tongue swirling across the slit of Luke's cock were the precome had once collected. Ashton hummed, the bittersweet of Luke tingling across the taste buds of his tongue. He acted as though it was his fuel to his dirtier ways with Luke.

With the taste of his boy lingering on his tongue, Ashton hollows his cheeks and sinks himself farther down onto the most sensitive Luke, slowly but surely filling his mouth. Just as the head of Luke's warm member was grazing across the back of his throat, Ashton swallowed on him and coaxed a throaty grown from the very back of Luke's throat, his chest resonating from the deep and heavy sound encouraged by Ashton's inviting mouth.

Without pulling off, Ashton keeps his firm suction on and around Luke, pacing himself in a respectful and pleasurable manner as he bobs his head along nearly two-thirds of his length.

In the first moments of their more intimate relationship, Ashton made it obvious to the blonde boy that he was unsure of his actions and if they were anything along the lines of euphoric towards Luke. Luke was almost the opposite of Ashton's uncertainty. He was a bit more brave, even acting against his normally quiet stature around most, and took as much of Ashton as he possibly would fit into his mouth.

Needless to say, Luke suffered from against sore throat the morning after.

Throwing his head back against and indulging in the sensation that is overflowing his body, radiating from his skin, Luke murmurs Ashton's name in encouragement for the gradually quickening bobs of his head. The amount of power behind his lips and the pace he took it made the experience just the slightest bit more intense. Luke lets his quivering fingers file through Ashton's unruly locks, pulling them away from his eyes to reveal his golden honey eyes flicker up to him.

Something about the picture before him made a sensational wave of bliss wash over every nerve in his body - Ashton's lips wrapped around his prominent length, gaining speed with the movements of his head, all while he kept eye contact with his lover.

The pants falling from Luke's bitten lips were further encouragement to push Luke to the edge. He could sense it in the way that Luke's muscles in his stomach were clenching, his chest reddening around his breathing pace only decides to quicken the longer Ashton draws him out for. It was refreshing to have Luke underneath his power. He's so vulnerable, losing every ounce of dominance he had in him before.

Ashton removes Luke from his mouth with a prominent pop, his hand quickly taking replacement of what was once there, flicking his wrist as he draws Luke to the edge.

"C'mon baby," Ashton coos to Luke, pressing a kiss to his cheek. "I want you to come for me. I want you to let it all out."

Within moments of Ashton's coaxing words, Luke's cock his spurting his load, semen pooling on his abdomen as an almost animalistic moan rips through him. His hips were jutting, his haw slacked and his knees buckled. The addictive euphoric wave flooded through his veins, washing him away with nothing but contentment afterwards.

Luke turns his meet and slots his lips with Ashton's, gracefully and boldly sliding his tongue against his. They surely hadn't had their fill - and Luke wasn't finished shedding off all of his boiling hot anger that was still burning bright. It's still there in the pit of his stomach and nagging at the back of his head, and he needs Ashton to wash it all away. He wants to forget how difficult it will be to help him through such a difficult process.

Luke's hands caressed Ashton's throbbing member, his callused fingertips scraping feebly against the sensitive skin and tracing along the prominent veins that stretched along Ashton's length.

As Ashton continued to move his lips in perfect sync with Luke's, he reached over to the nightstand, blindly reaching into the drawer for a single packet of condoms, and a travel size bottle of lubricant that could be tightly clenched within the palm of their hands.

Luke took notice of this and snatched the packaged condom from between Ashton's fingers, pulling away from the kiss to use his teeth to open the foil. Tossing the small foil to the side, Luke takes the rubber and reaches down for Ashton's length, running the protection down until he reached the base.

He pulls his hand away from Ash, brushing his knuckles against his navel before cupping his lover's face into his hands. "I love you," Luke murmurs, "even when you're acting like an unappreciative ass."

Luke groans, pressing a fond kiss to Luke's forehead before lathering his cock with the entire small bottle of lubricant. He evenly spreads himself with the lube, biting into his bottom lip as he flicks his wrist a handful of times.

Before Luke could show any signs of his impatience, Ashton runs the top of his pulsating length over Luke's entrance, igniting a small moan from his lips.

Luke spreads his legs farther, readying himself for Ashton's entrance. He gasps as Ashton slowly penetrates his warm length into his tight heat, immediately clenching his walls around Ashton, making it all the more blissful for Ashton to thrust inward.

Ashton presses his chest flush against Luke's, rising and falling in a somewhat dramatic manner as they soak in the addictive state of bliss that's floating throughout their bodies. His lips latch on to Luke's neck, his teeth gently nibbling into the sensitive flesh. As he rolls his hips forward and pushes himself farther into Luke's tight heat, Ashton continues sucking on Luke's neck, decorating his skin with dark red marks that are soon to darken and develop into blue or dark purple bruises scattered across the pale canvas of his skin.

Luke's hands fly to Ashton's back, his dull fingernails digging into tan flesh, continuing to curl until the muscles and tendons in his fingers ache terribly. Small whines fell from his bitten red lips, his lips already beginning to tremble from the immense pleasure coursing throughout his entire system, bringing every segment of his body alive to feel the fire.

"So good, baby," Ashton mumbles breathily into his neck, mouthing a few kisses onto the developing bruises he's made.

Luke's hands travel from Ashton back to his head, his fingers combing through his boyfriend's irresistible locks and pulling his face back so they could meet to a passionate kiss. While slotting their lips together in the type of moment that is so precious to them both, Ashton's slow thrusts into Luke continued and gradually began to increase in speed and intensity.

They moaned into their kisses, the vibrations of these noises emitting from their mouths and through their lips, adding an odd addition to the motion between them.

Luke gasped suddenly as Ashton makes a particularly more aggressive thrust  inward, the tip of his pulsating cock grazing against his prostate, causing for a shiver to travel up his spine and rack through his entire being, electrocuting every fiber and making his senses seem stronger. He feels more alert with this sudden burst of euphoria.

"Fuck," Luke curses, a crooked grin placed upon his lips as he parts from the kiss, flopping his head onto the pillows, his flat hair slightly panning out around his head.

The bed rocks slightly with Ashton's movements as he applies more force to each whip of his hips, the head of his dick running across just the right area within Luke. As soon as Luke was trembling to his knees, Ashton made sure to make every snap of his hips the same way. All to pleasure his love.

As for Ashton, the bliss could be seen radiating off his body. His facial features appeared as scrunched, his mouth open agape as one of his abnormally large hands plant themselves on Luke's heavily rising and falling chest, taking in the pleasure but making sure to please Luke before himself. Luke mattered more to him right now, and he just simply wants to make up for his horrendous outburst earlier, but to also wants to show his love for his boy lying like a hot mess before him.

That's how they spent their time together. Their bodies slotted together perfectly as Ashton continued to roll his hips inward, stroking Luke's erect member and coaxing him to meet his climax. They occasionally dropped a kiss on one another's lips, or whatever skin they could reach.

As Luke's orgasm rippled through his lanky body, he released on to his clenching stomach, his warm walls tightening around Ashton's member that remained penetrated inside of him. This encourages Ashton for his release into the rubber. His thrusts inside of Luke slowed down, milking out his orgasm.

Pulling out of Luke's warmth, Ashton pulled off the condom, tied it, and tossed it into the trash bin by their bed. Ashton collapsed down next to his boy afterwards, murmuring words of encouragement to join him for a shower to cleanse their dirty bodies.

With an exhausted smile, Luke obliges and follows Ashton into the bathroom, stepping underneath the warm showerhead to wash away his worries, and the mess.

~|~

Luke should have seen it coming one day or another. It was an easy prediction for Ashton to erupt so suddenly. After all, after Ashton fell asleep the previous night, Luke finally discovered his hidden stash and flushed it all down the toilet.

However, what Luke didn't expect was to be pinned up against the wall in the hallway leading to their bedroom.

His baby blues widened at the crazed sight of Ashton, his hands tightly clenched around his wrists, pinning them against the cool wall. A shiver ran down Luke's spine at the chilling sight of Ashton's wide eyes and the line of sweat formed across his hairline, soaking some strands of his golden ringlets.

"What have you done?" Ashton gapes to Luke in bewilderment. "Why would you do this to me, Luke?" He shakes his head, his quivering becoming quite evident to Luke's eyes. Luke knew that he shouldn't be so afraid of him, but when Ashton is under his heavy withdrawal symptoms, he turn into a person that no one could recognize.

Luke swallows the building lump in his throat. "I want you to stop, Ashton. Your stunt yesterday at the meeting..." He stops when Ashton rams Luke's hands into the wall, showing much force. Luke flinched, his wrists beginning to swell and throb from Ashton's unnecessarily aggressive grip.

"You can't just fucking throw it all away!" Ashton shouts in Luke's face, a growl ripping through his voice. Luke's face scrunches at this, clenching his eyes shut so he doesn't have to see the fury burning in his lover's eyes. "Luke, you can't- I just..." Ashton begins to stutter, his heavy breathing becoming more prominent as the time passes.

"Ash, baby," Luke murmurs, slowly cracking his eyes open. He takes in the figure of Ashton as his grip around Luke's wrists loosens and his hands eventually falls to his sides.

Even though he's been freed from Ashton's uncomforting hold, Luke still has himself pressed against the wall. Even when Ashton looks like a mess, sweaty and his eyes beginning to water, Luke cannot approach him. His behavior is so unpredictable.

"I'm going out," he murmurs, fixing his short sleeves and turning to walk out. Making his way down the steps, Luke could do nothing but watch as he vanished.

Luke flinched as the door slammed closed, signaling Ashton's departure.

What will it take for Ashton to understand that Luke wants his normal boyfriend back? What will it take for Ashton to finally open his eyes and to let Luke in - to help find himself again?

Luke slides his back down the wall, burying his face into the palms of his hands. He suddenly wishes that Calum and Michael didn't leave for the day. He needs someone so he can cry into their shoulder.


	7. Invisible

Ashton's lack of presence in the house begins to wear Luke down to his bones. All of the possibilities of his disappearance day by day are crawling underneath his skin and feeding on his gradually healing tank of sanity. He's on the very brink of approaching Ashton, but the small voice living in the back of his skull says something else, insisting that it is best to keep quiet for now. In the end of his mental war between the angel and the devil sitting on his stressed shoulders, he finally concludes that he'll avoid a potentially fatal brawl of words with him.

To help cease the bothersome nagging of his conscience, he schedules a day out with Michael after Ashton's daily departure after he claims that he's meeting with some old friends from school. Luke figured that it was the appropriate time to start searching for a new home for him and Ashton to settle in. He's mentioned this to Ashton once over a large pizza hot from Papa John's nearby pizzeria, but Ashton simply nodded and waved it off. He didn't seem stressed at the very least over the matter. Or rather, it didn't seem to matter at that moment. He has simply forgotten that there might be evil eyes burning into the back of his head from out beyond their windows.

Luke felt as though he was the only one who is dwelling on everything that had taken place a few weeks prior to Ashton's changing behavior. Maybe, just maybe, the ones who were once fuming about Ashton's lack of payment for his drugs, had given up and returned to their normal lives. Perhaps they had simply forgotten about it and they're letting it sit in the past to collect dust.

Deciding to let it go for the time being, Luke dials Michael's phone number and presses his phone to his ear. As the cell rings, he lets himself sink into the fairly new couch, nearly being sandwiched in between the plush cushions and buried alive. Surely they were to be worn out and slightly deflated once they have visitors to come over and indulge themselves in the puffy cushions.

"Hello?" Answers his brightly dyed Aussie friend. Michael has his phone pressed between his ear and his shoulder, his flat screen TV displaying his intense game of Fifa as his thumbs frantically moved over the buttons, sticks, and controls of his PlayStation control.

"Do you have anything better to do today other than spend some time with me?" Luke asks, flicking off the living room television before him as he strolls into the kitchen. The house it so empty without Ashton. Apparently, according to Luke's imaginary (and occasionally dramatic) voices inside of his head, everything feels so nude without Ashton being there beside him.

Michael hums in false wondering, his tongue peeking out from beyond his reddened lips as he gasps at some unexpected move from another player on the screen. "I'm not sure. Are you doing anything that might be of my interest?" Michael asks, sighing as words of failure flashed on his screen.

"It might depend," says Luke, shrugging his shoulders. He balances his cellphone between his shoulder and ear, opening the fridge door and retrieving a water bottle for himself. "How would you like to go house hunting with me?"

Michael's eyebrows furrow, tossing his game controller to the other side of the couch. He kicks his sock-covered feet up onto the coffee table, curling his toes underneath the constricting fabric before leaning over to peel them off from his feet and toss the socks carelessly to the floor.

"I don't know how fun house hunting sounds to me," his eyes flicker over at his clock, then back at his screen, asking him if he wants to replay the level again in attempt to beat his previous score. "But I _guess_ I can make an exception - as long as you promise me some Panda Express after the deed is done. Is Ashton coming along by any chance?"

At the mention of Ashton's name, Luke's grip on his water bottle tightened. "He... he went out somewhere today." Luke clears his throat, twisting open the bottle and pouring the fresh water into his mouth, refreshing and rejuvenating himself once he swallows. "Dunno where, though."

Michael huffs on the other side. "I would be sarcastic if I said that I'm not irritated by him. Is he ever home anymore?" Just as Luke was opening his mouth to reply, Michael cuts him off mid-sentence. "You know what, no. We'll talk about this when I get there. Give me fifteen minutes, and I'll be there."

The call was ended before Luke could even manage to let one word out, frowning as he parts the phone away from his ear. All Luke could simply do was to wait for Michael to show up at his door - whenever that may be.

~|~

As Luke waited patiently for Michael's arrival, he decided to freshen himself up. Jogging up the stairs to enter his and Ashton's bedroom, he approaches the closet and plucks out a plain light sweater and some black skinnies. He tugs at the belt loops of his pants a bit stubbornly as he managed to shimmy into his skin-tight jeans. After changing into his desired outfit, he tosses the dirty articles of clothing into the hamper and rearranges everything on his side of the room in an attempt to busy himself.

Ever since Ashton had thrown a fit over his misplaced box of euphoria, he's been very careful about his placement of the drugs and checks various times before he leaves them be in his consistently changing hiding spots. He's become much too paranoid about Luke dumping them into the toilet and flushing them down the drain like he had done before, discarding what he slowly had to ease off of.

According to Lizzy's plans, Ashton is to decrease his usage of his drugs in a timely manner. Cold turkey is most certainly not the way to go, and Ashton has just crossed the boundary of where it is unsafe to commit to such a thing. To prevent from Luke being able to catch a sort of suspicion about his whereabouts and the location of his dust, Ashton remains quiet and chooses only the most reliable of places within the house. He is never too careful.

After all, Ashton has gotten Luke to swear that he wouldn't interfere with Ashton's hold on the matter.

Luke's ears perked at the sound of the front door opening and closing, signaling Michael's arrival. Sometimes he wonders to himself if it was and wise decision to hand one of his house keys over to Michael. Knowing him, he is bound to use it to quench his need to prank his beloved bandmates. Secretively, Luke knows that he can rely on Michael for many situations if not Ashton, as he has always been there to comfort his erratic nerves.

"Hemmings, where art thou Hemmings?" Michael's voice is carried well throughout the hallways. "My Romeo! Oh, Romeo!" The verbal drama added to his pronunciations of the words flowing from his mouth made his entrance all the more amusing.

Luke's eyes rolled at this, a grin gradually gaining its way upon his full pink lips. He skips down the steps after stuffing his phone and the paper of addresses of some buildings into his back pockets, meeting Michael in the living area.

"I hate to be technical and to bring back high school, but Juliet was asking why Romeo was a Montague, not where he -,"

"Alright, my nerdy friend of mine," Michael says, slinging his arm casually yet playfully around Luke's broadening shoulders, "let's ditch this joint before you really start bringing back the horrific memories of high school." He cringes in a teasing manner, hauling the blonde boy out the door.

He does this as he lures Luke out to his car, releasing him from his grip and sliding into the driver's seat. Once both of the boys were fastened in their seats, Michael jammed his keys into the ignition, and with the quick flick of his wrists, started the engine. It hummed and spit a couple of times before it rumbled continuously in a manner that made Michael feel a little more comforted about the wellbeing of his older car.

"Tell me about Irwin," says Michael as he pulls his car out from the driveway, the wheels causing for the stones beneath to deliver a large series of crunches. "What has that boy been up to?"

Luke slips the piece of paper out from his pocket, his brilliant blue eyes flickering over the folded paper within his hands. "I don't know," he murmurs softly, "that's the problem. He's always out and he hasn't told me where he's been."

Michael's bushy eyebrows furrow, his bottom lip being chewed on as he slowly digests Luke's words. "You need to have some better communicating skills, my friend. That's going to be a consistent problem between the both of you if you don't fix it soon."

Luke sighs. "I flushed his stash," he mumbles, rolling his eyes as Michael gasps in a horrified manner.

"It's like you want Ashton to have your head sitting on his shelf like some trophy!" Michael throws one of his hands up into the air, shaking his head in disbelief. "Cold turkey is not the way to go, man. He will go nuts like he did before. He can't just drop the whole addiction with the snap of his fingers."

"It's know," says Luke. "I wish it were that easy. I guess I just like to make myself believe that he could put a little more effort into quitting, is all." Luke shrugs his broad shoulders, turning his head to look out the window, watching the passing houses as they neared farther into town.

Michael sucks on his bottom lip, his teeth nibbling and abusing the flesh until it got swollen and turned a velvety red. He lets his flying hand fall back onto the steering wheel, this thumbs hitting and tapping an imaginary beat.

He begins to immerse himself into deep thought, ever so slightly leaning his back into his seat. He imagines the possibilities to help give Ashton a firm boost to the end of his addiction. What are some possible tactics that could be of use to Ashton? What are ways that help make the addiction a bit more bearable?

"Have you talked to him? Tried reasoning and tried telling him that it is for his own good?" Michael asks, pulling over on the side of the road.

Luke looks around, slowly looking around to find Michael's reason to pull over. Glancing back at his vividly-dyed friend, Luke sinks back into his seat, allowing his back to relax into the cushions.

"He was angry," said Luke with a hint of bitterness, "I couldn't keep bothering him and pressing him with questions when he just found out that I let his drugs go down the toilet and plummet into the sewers."

Michael frowns. "What is staying silent going to do for you? I respect that you are willing to give him some space, but things will only get worse if you keep quiet and you don't talk about it."

Luke rolls his eyes. "I thought you were going to help me with house hunting," Luke snaps, "not interrogate me and lecture me about what is right from wrong." He freezes in his place, taken aback by the words that seemingly flew out from his mouth without the 'okay' from his conscience. "I'm sorry, Mike..."

Luke pulls his long fingers through his flattening hair, allowing his fingers to curl and clench on the chunks of blonde, pulling at his scalp in his enraging fit of irritation.

Michael's lips pressed together. He rubbed them together until they blossomed into an eye-popping red. He allowed his hand to run over his stubble in thought, feebly picking at the growing hairs along his jaw.

"Let's go look for some better homes you'd want to live in," says Michael softly, patting Luke's shoulder and shaking him ever so lightly. "I'll help get your mind off of stupid 'ole Ashton."

~|~

Perspiration in the form of droplets fell along the scalding hot skin of his forehead, trickling in persistent streams down the defined curves and gentle bumps along his face. He tucks his arms to his chest again, shielding his face as he shifts his weight quickly from his left to right foot, blocking any imaginary blows from his nonexistent opponent.

Izzy's voice was ringing in his ears and bouncing off the walls of his skull, commanding him to deliver jabs at a certain point in time to the menacing leather punching bag that was dangling from the ceiling before him. Some of his messy ringlets of hair were stuck to his forehead and cheeks, most of his unruly locks tamed back with an old bandana he normally wore for gigs out with the boys.

"I don't see enough sweating, Irwin!" Izzy yells over Ashton's grunting as his wrapped knuckles collide with the punching bag.

As the time passes on, Ashton could feel his prominent knuckles sweltering and thumping as bruises begin to form, blossoming into a bold purple. He swears lowly to himself, thinking that it's another mark on his body he'll need to thoroughly explain to a worrisome Luke. _That's just what I need,_ he thinks sarcastically to himself, rolling his eyes as he gives another aggressive punch to the bag. The thought quickly exited his thought as soon as he gave the punching bag another aggressive blow.

"I can't do this," Ashton breathes heavily, calming his tense muscles and allowing his arms to fall back down to his sides. He tries to catch his breath, shrugging his shoulders at Izzy in a pathetic manner. "This is doing nothing but making me light-headed."

Izzy, posing her impudent stance with her popped hip and crossed arms, arches a bold eyebrow in Ashton's direction. She makes her way over to Ashton, her ponytail swinging behind her as she gradually approaches him. He asks himself numerous times as to how she remains so perky.

"Is that quitter talk I hear?" She cups her hand over her ear. "No," she shakes her head, placing her hands on her hips, "I don't. I should hear more punching!"

"Izzy," Ashton groans, nearly tripping over his own feet as she gives him a small nudge forward.

"Ashton," she says sternly. "I'm serious. This is going to help you relieve all of that built-up anger inside of you." She slaps her hands onto his bare shoulders, then gripping onto his soaking tank top. "This is a way to help. It's good for you to feel tired. It's supposed to lead your mind to other places and to forget about all of the things that you want."

Ashton gives a heavy sigh, biting his bottom lip, allowing it to redden and swell until it grows slightly larger in size. Izzy frowns at Ashton's expressions, letting her hands fall from his shoulders.

"What are you thinking about right now, Ashton?" Izzy asked with a heavy amount of concern, tilting her head ever so slightly to the side. Ashton secretly finds it amazing as to how quickly she can convert from one thing to another. He's having immense difficulty simply focusing on what he's doing.

Ashton licks his lips, tucking back some of the dampened curls behind his bandana. "All I can think about is getting another dose into my body," his face goes pale. "That's why I think I feel so tired and moody."

Ashton pinches his eyes closed, his face scrunching ever so slightly. His head increases in severity of his aspiration for another dosage. Suddenly, it became the only thing that mattered to him. He couldn't care less about the marks the needles they make in his skin as he injects the addictive substance into his body.

He snaps his eyes open, sucking in a deep breath and allowing his heart rate to lower.

Izzy shakes her head. "You _think_ you need it," she says, tapping her fingers against her forearms. "But in reality, your body isn't used to being off the drug for his period of time. I assure you that the longer you take your mind off it, the easier it will be to bear. We just need to keep plowing through this and you can pass out when you get home."

Ashton frowns, nibbling into his bottom lip once more purely out of his impatience to leaving the area and returning home to his bed, and possibly taking another dose. "But I'm so _tired_. I want to get home now." Ashton groans, wiping off his glistening forehead with the back of his wrapped hand before plopping himself down on a nearby metal chair. He leans his entire body against the back, allowing his head to fall backwards, his eyes fluttering shut.

"It's good that you're tired," says Izzy. "You're not pushing yourself and that is going to interfere with your goals." She sighs when Ashton remains stationary. "Just get your ass up-,"

Before Izzy was able to finish her sentence, she was unexpectedly disrupted when Ashton's phone began to ring at an obnoxiously high volume, causing for her bright eyes to narrow at him. Ashton, however, jolted up from his spot and used this as an escape for a measly break from the grueling workout that Izzy was forcing him to endure.

He glances at the caller ID, his eyebrows bunching together when he reads Luke's name. He braces himself before accepting the call, pressing the phone to his ear while simultaneously turning to face Izzy. "Luke, babe, I'm a little busy at the moment."

"Come home!" Luke giggled from the other end of the call, his laughter bubbly and carefree.

Back at home, Luke had thrown himself on the couch, laughing as Michael clumsily fell on top of him, all of it sounding similar to a group of teenage girls at a slumber party - including a lot of shifting in the background.

Back at their home, Michael was strewn across Luke's lap, two empty beer cases of six thrown across the floors, empty brown beer bottles sitting on top of the coffee table and on the floor by the short legs. To say that the living area was a mess would be quite an understatement as it was absolutely trashed with empty bottles, empty chip bags (and other various snack containers), and their shoes there thrown every which way.

"Are you feeling alright?" Ashton asks Luke, tearing his eyes away from Izzy and plugging his finger into his free ear to help his foggy brain focus better the sound of Luke's voice. He felt his heart strain at Luke's lively tone.

Luke smacked Michael after he had pinched at his rib cage, then swiftly scrambling away from Luke before he had the opportunity to hit him in return.

Luke laughed breathily and spoke into the phone, "Better than ever, babe!" He smiles broadly, perching his bare feet up on the coffee table. "I just miss you, and I want you to come home."

Ashton hummed lightly in acknowledgement. "I can hear." He rolls his eyes. "Who is home with you?"

"Mr. Clifford here took me house hunting today," Luke said bluntly, never running over the thought of explaining his day to Ashton as he has never properly introduced him to the idea of finding a new home.

"What?" Ashton exclaims, his eyes nearly bulging out from their sockets. "You're kidding me," Ashton removes his finger from his ear, pinching at the bridge of his nose. He crouches over and leans his elbows on his knees in his sitting position. "I guess I'm on my way. Please don't fuck up the house before I get there."

Ashton hangs up on Luke before the blonde boy even had the opportunity to object to ending the phone call. He begins to make his way through the personal training room, snatching his gym bag up from the floor and stuffing his phone into the large side pocket.

"Excuse me," Izzy explains, watching Ashton pack up his belongings with a look of astonishment. "Are you really going to pack up and leave without telling me why you're ending our session so early?" She checked the time on the watch wrapped securely around her small wrist. "We have at least another hour left here in the gym. That was our _deal_ , Ashton."

Ashton slipped on a track jacket and slung his bag over his shoulder, tucking his arm by his side. "I have some more important duties to take of at home. I have a feeling that one of my friends got Luke drunk and took him out to look for another home."

Izzy's dark eyebrows scrunched together, her forehead crinkling in confusion. "Why is he looking for another place?"

Ashton freezes at the door, his hand tightening around the silver handle. He avoids all possible eye contact with Izzy and licks his cracking lips. His head was thumping and his temptations are luring him into a space of darkness.

"I'll call you when I get a handle of the situation," Ashton sighs heavily. "There may be some small details that I left out about my connections with the dealers."

Izzy, incredulously staring off as Ashton walks out of the reserved gym area, groans and rubs her eyes with the palms of her hands, delivering a quick kick to the punching bag.

~|~

Michael was scavenging through Ashton and Luke's kitchen cupboards and fridge in search of something to chow down on. He can surely be categorized as a hungry drunk, loving to fill his stomach as he continues to down bottles of beer until he can't see straight.

However, even being a boisterous and constantly hungry drunk, the only thing he was thinking about and what he was interested in was a foggy glass bottle of liquor that was placed in the freezer once he found it underneath frozen packages of chicken thighs. He pushed away all of the prepared food packages and held the bottle in his hands as though he was holding a newborn infant, his lips slowly spreading into a goofy grin.

"I think I may have hit the jackpot," Michael calls out to Luke as he kicked his legs up on the opposite arm of the couch, his head perched on the other, his lanky body sprawled in every which direction as he lounged and relaxed his body as though he has nothing to worry his mind about.

"Bring it here!" Luke called to him, flicking off the television. Nothing interesting was playing on their channels. He swings his legs over the side of the couch as Michael plops down beside him with two tall shot glasses and the liquor bottle. He sits them down on the coffee table in front of them, making it nearly impossible to look away from.

Luke's eyebrows raise questionably at Michael as his eyes flicker quizzically between the small glasses and the taunting bottle of alcohol. "I'm already feeling pretty drunk, Mike," says Luke, running his hand underneath the sleeve of his sweater, his fingertips running circles along his skin. "I don't mean to reject this in a bad way and be a downer or anything, but I don't want alcohol poisoning and it is _Ashton's_ liquor bottle. He saves it for special occasions."

He knew that labeling a bottle of liquor that you can replace is a weak move to discourage Michael from drinking it or pressuring him into drinking it, but it was what he had to use from the top of his fuzzy thoughts.

"Oh, c'mon," says Michael, frowning as Luke declines the offer for further consumption of alcohol. "Have you really seen Ashton pick up a single drink ever since he started shooting heroin into his body? When is he going to drink from this bottle next?"

Luke's muscles tightened slightly as Michael brought up what he hates most. He didn't appreciate Michael bringing up Ashton's worrying drug habits when he was trying to let loose.

"And we don't have to drink the entire bottle," Michael continues. "C'mon, Hemmo. I'm just trying to make you forget about Ashton for a while. I think you deserve to sit back, relax, and talk about world peace, if you want," he snickers. "Maybe not world peace, but you should know where I am getting at."

Without a second thought, Luke grasped a hold of the liquor bottle and began pouring the shots for him and Mike, splashing over the rim and collecting in puddles on the countertop. Michael knew exactly what he was thinking about at the moment and he knew how to get inside of Luke's head to get him to do things. Michael being under the influence may not be the greatest person to follow orders from, but Luke wanted to forget about Ashton for the night - just for one, single, lonely, worrisome night. And if he did come back into his clouded thoughts, then at least he would use the euphoria of being drunk and reckless to be happy, or carefree, at the least.

Before they were able to invest themselves heavily into drinking and get incredibly drunk off their asses to the extent of where they're stepping over their own feet, Ashton finally arrives home. He slips through and door, drops his gym bag by the door alongside with his shoes, and slips his wallet into one of the pockets of his jacket dangling on the coat hanger.

Ashton's eyebrows knit together as he watched Michael down his shot and give the bottle to Luke. Luke, looking a bit hesitant to swig directly from the bottle, gives Michael an arched eyebrow, his teeth gnawing down into his bottom lip until it became a fleshy red.

"What the actual fuck?" Ashton says, feeling as though he was intruding on something, a sense of discomfort applied to his stressed shoulders. He trudges through the house to reach them, his footsteps heavy although he was lacking any footwear. "Why the hell do you think it is this a good time to drink until you see stars?"

Luke's head snaps in the direction of Ashton's voice, swallowing down the words that he hates to scream: _'Where have you been?'_

Michael throws his hands up in the air in defense, flashing him a look that drenched of guilt. "Is it a problem to have some time to ourselves?" He furrows his eyebrows. "Is this a problem for you?"

Ashton's amber eyes rolled as he allowed his arms to cross his chest. "You're an absolute idiot when you're drunk." He steps in front of Michael and reaches out for his arm, grasping onto his wrist and pulling him forward to encourage him to stand on the flats of his feet. "C'mon, Michael. I'm driving you home."

As soon as his arm was gripped, Michael pulls his arm away, releasing Ashton's hold from him. He scolds at Ashton, scoffing at his statement, although the back of his head can't help but to agree.

"Now you decide to come home and pay attention to someone _but_ Luke?" Michael frowns heavily at this, folding his arms in front of his chest. "Now that's a dick move, son. What matters more to you now? That dust you have locked up in some box that you hide in some place? Are you best buds with your druggie friends now?"

Ashton refuses to turn his head to make simple eye contact with his beloved, arching his eyebrow at Michael as he drunkenly laughs and allows himself to fall back into the overwhelming cushions of the new couch.

Feeling irritated at Michael and a bit too dry patience to tolerate his foolish actions, Ashton takes Michael's wrists back into his hold and forces him up, nudging him to the staircase leading upstairs. "If you're that drunk, then get yourself to bed in the guest room, because I am not dealing with it. You're driving yourself home in the morning."

Michael scoffs as though he's been insulted, his top lip curling upward as Ashton shoots him a death stare that burned, flames erupting in his pupils and reflecting a small glimmer of light in the corner. He shakes his head in disgust, turning away to walk up the steps.

Before he lifts a single foot on the first step, Michael turns his head around and looks Ashton dead in the eye, his eyes reflecting the same form of fury. "One day, you're going to make a big mistake and you're going to wish you asked for more help."

Turning away from the battle scene, Michael trudges up the steps, holding on with more force than what is really needed on the railing going up, his bicep seeming strained from a distance. Ashton lets out a groan, running his large hands down his face, slowly pulling his fingers through his messy mop of hair.

Ashton's great deal of stress radiated off from his body, reaching Luke and washing over his entire being. Luke wants to step forward and offer his love to help soothe Ashton's frustration, but Luke is much too afraid to approach him with so much negative energy coming from Ashton in the first place. He decides to play it safe and to avoid any conflict with Ashton unless it was absolutely necessary.

"I understand you want to have some fun time to yourself or with one of the boys, but really?" Ashton snatches the bottle from the table, tightly clenching his hand around the neck of the foggy glass. "Are you purposely leaving me out of important things like finding a new home? That is something we're supposed to be doing as a couple. And quite frankly,-"

"I just needed a day to myself to forget about you, Ashton. You are always gone and I don't know what to do with myself." Luke crouched himself in the corner of the couch, allowing his eyes to flicker away from Ashton's darker and daunting presence. "You've been pretending like I don't exist - almost like I matter like some dog shit on the sole of your shoe."

A scoff rushed passed his lips, his shoulders deflating. He turns on the heels of his feet and begins to swiftly walk his way into the kitchen, returning the bottle back into the freezer in its rightful spot underneath the pile of frozen goods. "What must I do to make you believe that what I am doing is good for the both of us?" He slams the freezer door closed, knocking his head against the stainless steel. "I am trying to make things better and you're not being very helpful."

"By pushing me away?" Luke says, his eyebrows raising upward in a questionable manner. "Why do you treat me like I don't exist then?" Luke swings himself up onto his feet, glaring as he makes way into the kitchen. "Your method sucks."

Ashton twists his head around from the fridge, watching Luke's frigid figure as he stands at the exit of the living room. "I'm doing what's best for us, Luke. Why can't you understand that?"

"You're not doing what's best for us anymore," Luke snapped, his cheeks reddening as his voice gradually raised in volume. "You've taken me out of that equation, and you're caring only for yourself, and it is not such a good idea right now, given that you're hooked on drugs."

"What the hell-,"

"Shut up and listen to what I have to say for once," says Luke, his words sharper than the refined edge of a kitchen cutlery knife. "I want to be a part of your healing process, Ash. I can't do that because you won't let me. Ever since our home has been invaded, you've been acting all stuff and excluding me out of everything."

Biting into his lower lip, Luke allowed his teeth to sink into the plump flesh and play with the metal ring adorning his lip. "Let me know whenever you want my help," says Luke, turning away and making his way towards the staircase. "I'm sharing the guest room with Michael tonight. You have our room to yourself. You can get as high as you want."

After his spirit was crushed into irreplaceable fragments, Ashton turned all of the lights off and retreated to their bedroom, sitting on their bed alone and slipping out his box of euphoria from underneath the mattress on his side of the bed.

Opening the box, Ashton injected it into his streams until the bizz rattled his bones. He never thought about his betrayal to Izzy. He simply injected himself with the dosage and fell back, letting his high take him to some place new. A place where he couldn't feel the guilt that hovered over him now and pressed on his chest.


	8. A Crumbling Reality

"How are you and the boys doing?" The question rung his ears for a moment as Calum arched his back into his dining room chair, stretching his muscles and placing his hands behind his head. He rushes out a gust of air from his lungs, letting it pass from his bitten lips. Stuffed from a homemade dinner prepared by no one else but his culinary talented mother herself, Calum's stomach is filled to the very brim and he's not sure that his full stomach can handle dessert.

Calum's eyes make their way over across the table, locking with David, his father. He was just finishing the last few savory bites of dinner from his plate. His eyebrows arched upward as he awaited for his son's answer.

"We are all pretty well-," he cuts himself off as memories instantly flood back to him, telling him ' _N_ _o, Calum. Stop acting like_ _everything is_ _alright_.' No matter how much he would like to discard the fact that things between Luke and Ashton are still rocky, making the friendship between everyone feel a bit foreign, he cannot pretend that everything's going well. He's never been dishonest to his family. "Well, there are some relationship issues going on between Luke and Ashton," says Calum, his hands sliding down his face and falling into his lap, his thumb nails picking underneath one another.

Mali-Koa, Calum's sister, perks her head up and narrows her eyes in interest. "Is everything alright?" She asks, settling her silverware on her plate, no longer showing interest in her last few scraps of dinner.

The boy shrugged his broad shoulders, showing honest uncertainty. "Ashton's been having some personal problems lately and he's been letting it effect his relationship with Luke. I don't know how long this is going to stay unsteady for." He presses his lips together and murmurs something personally to himself along the lines of 'I wish it won't stay this way for long.'

Calum's mother, Joy, hums as she wonders. "That doesn't sound like Ashton," she says, resting her head on her propped arm. "As far as I know, he's usually pretty mature about those kinds of things. What's been happening between them to start this?"

Calum was unsure of whether he should tell them of Ashton's latest troubles. With his abrupt and startling mood swings, he is uneasy about blabbing his mouth off about Ashton's mysterious whereabouts and his newfound drug habits. If Ashton discovered that Calum told his family members about his addiction, then he'd explode with fury and in worry that his family would find out for themselves. Ashton is still irresponsible for his own actions.

"Promise me you guys won't mention anything to Ashton," says Calum, sitting forward and leaning his arms on the table, running his used fork along the plate and creating clinking sounds. Something must be in his hands when his anxiety levels rise. "He's unstable and I don't know if he wants me to tell many people about what has been happening."

Calum's family members all took a moment to exchange worrisome glances, settling whatever was in their hands down do they could focus their full attention to him.

Calum's teeth gnawed down into his lower lip and exhales heavily through his nose. He hates having this particular discussion about Ashton. He was once the musically persistent, bubbly, and best loving best friend he came to know and appreciate. Since he turned to drugs, now his bright personality vanished into thin air. Roaming around in the atmosphere.

It's as if Ashton's true soul evaporated into thin air and disintegrated, no longer to exist. It has to be there still. His true identity can't be _gone._ However, no one sees the brightness that is usually held within his warm, hazel eyes. He is simply nothing but a walking skeleton, a small body within him commanding him to go on autopilot. Cocaine is only feeding this foreign entity within Ashton and he's soon to be taken if this continues for long.

He doesn't want to see Luke get so heartbroken once Ashton disappears and slowly shifts himself away from everyone who has come to know and love him. But most of all, Calum doesn't want to lose one of his best friends.

He took in a deep breath, preparing himself to let out this heavy information to his family members. "Ashton has got himself involved with a drug cartel and he hasn't been acting like himself ever since."

He intertwined his fingers together, settling them upon the table as he nervously awaited some form of response from his family.

Mali-Koa tucked some of her hair behind the shell of her ear, sitting back into her chair and allowing this news to sink in. "Ashton is abusing drugs?" She sighs in disbelief. " _Ashton?"_

Joy covers her mouth with the palm of her hand, letting out a worrisome 'oh no.' Her soft eyes gazed at her son as her eyebrows scrunched to meet in the middle. She has come to known Ashton as one of the sweetest, talented, and most intelligent of Calum's friends. She understands how special Calum's friends are to him. Seeing her son become so concerned about his close brother worries her just as much.

Calum's family can recall from a time when he was little, when he had lots of baby fat stuffing his soft cheeks, a cut always on his knees or hands, and hair swooping over his wide eyes. It was a time when him and his friends would gather to ride their bikes into town and hang at the park for extensive periods of time until they were wobbly at their knees and near to collapsing to the ground, stand and tanbark in his shoes.

"I believe that he's taking therapy sessions with Luke," Calum adds, his voice slicing into the unnerving fit of silence. "Hopefully they're going to keep going to them and it'll help lead him to a better path. Luke wants him better more than anyone else I am aware of."

"Geesh," says David, licking his lips of leftover dinner crumbles. "What made him start something like that?"

Joy slowly stood from her placement at the table, moving around between her children and husband and retrieving their cleared plates to shove them into the dishwasher. Her worries are focused more on her son and Ashton rather than washing the dishes, but the job must be done. Her delicate hands reached for their dishes, stacking them on top of one another and placing all used silverware on top, strategically balancing them in one hand as she made her way into the kitchen.

Calum simply shrug his broad shoulders. Ashton has been leaving nearly everyone in the dark about his new habits and does little to no cooperation. It worries Calum because he isn't sure what he should expect from Ashton. He's been so unpredictable at the most frustrating points in time, making it extremely difficult to cope.

Just as Calum was going to speak, his phone began buzzing obnoxiously against the wood of the dining table, shaking his clean silverware lying by his vibrating device.

His eyes simply glance over at the caller ID, his eyebrows arching upward once he read the name that is flashing on his screen: Luke. An uneasy feeling churned his stomach around in circles, his food slowly making its way up his throat. He swallows it back down.

"Can I take this?" Calum asks as he snatches his phone off from the table. "Luke is calling. It may be serious."

David and Mali-Koa glanced at each other, simultaneously looking back at Calum. "Son, if you think it's important, then you go and answer it. With what's going on, he may need you."

Calum nodded and swiftly exited the room after politely excusing himself, accepting the call and pressing the earpiece against his ear while he stepped outside. "Hey, Luke. Is everything alright?" He can't seem to help the amount of concern that soaked his words, stepping out into the cool air, the chill washing over Calum's exposed skin. It's not everyday he receives a call from Luke.

"Calum," Luke's panicked voice quivered on the other side of the call. "Ashton's not home, a-and I think someone's in the house." He let's out another shivering breath, uneasy and heavy. "I called Ashton ten times. He hasn't answered. The _idiot_ isn't fucking _answering_ his phone." Calum hears the blonde take in an uneasy breath, swallowing back a trembling sob. "Oh, _God_."

This immediately hooked Calum's attention, his heart skipping a beat in utter fright for the blonde boy as he sat home alone. "Where are you, Luke?" Calum murmured into the phone, trying his best to keep his voice calm. He immediately slips back into his cozy home, certainly not planning to stay any longer. Luke needs someone.

"I'm hiding in the bathroom shower," he croaks, his breathing fast and uneasy. "Calum, they're knocking everything over and I can hear a shitload of glass shattering and everything."

Calum takes hurried steps into the dining room, his father and sister frowning at the sight of Calum's flustered face. He was going pale, his fingers trembling as he kept his phone held against his ear, listening to Luke trying to hold back all of his cries. He wants to squeeze himself into the phone line and sit by Luke to help guide him through until the coast is clear of all threats. 

"I need to go," he blabbers, shaking his head as he tries again to grasp a hold of the situation at hand. It's still a blur to him, but it's real. "Someone broke into Luke and Ashton's place. I'll call you guys soon." Calum dismisses them with the quick wave of his hand, darting towards the door and slamming it closed behind him. Not once did he look back at his sister, father, or mother. This is no time for proper goodbyes. It's an emergency regarding the person that has kept him sane for his entire life.

"Luke, stay with me," Calum scrambles, trying to pace his irregular breathing to keep himself from curling into a fetal position and panicking. "I'm on my way over. Keep talking to me."

Calum internally growls to himself within his inner thoughts about why he must be so far away at the worst time possible while he swiftly throws himself into his car and turns on the engine, having already stabbed the keys into the. It took him several tries with the quick flick if his wrist until his fossil of a car rumbled to life.

"He's still downstairs," Luke stutters. "What if he comes upstairs and finds me? Calum, what if he _sees_ me? What if he intends to hurt me?" Calum backs his vehicle out of the driveway, bidding his family a final silent farewell by briefly glancing over at his childhood home. He then briefly turns his attention to his car, focusing his eyes on the dark road that stretched and blended out into the darkness before him.

He nearly floors the gas pedal, traveling with great speed ahead, paying no attention to the spitting noises sounding from underneath the car hood. Calum immediately dislikes the way that Luke is talking; he cringes when Luke brings up an ongoing list of all of the horrible possibilities that could happen to him. "Luke, stop thinking like that. Have you called anyone else besides me?" Calum says, putting Luke's call on speaker and switching it to full volume, Luke's voice hardly speaking over the sounds of struggle in Calum's car, his two hands firmly grasping onto the wheel.

Luke hums at first, pinching his eyes closed. He really doesn't have to think so hard about it, but he found it extremely difficult to concentrate properly when someone is raiding through your belongings - especially when you're unsure of their intentions. What if they're armed with something dangerous? A sharpened knife? A loaded  _gun_?

"I had already called Ashton nearly ten times. He never answered, so then I started calling Michael a couple of times... But I think he's out at Guitar Center looking for something new to gig with?" He says this with uncertainty as he runs his fingers through his flattened hair of golden blonde locks, pulling at them from the roots. "I dunno."

"Text Michael and Ashton," Calum says, voice firm as he commands Luke to do as he persists. "When they can, they'll see it. They're closer to you, so hopefully Michael will glance at his phone and whatnot. You're going to be fine, mate. Luke, everything is going to be fine."

It sounds more like Calum is not only trying to convince Luke that he's safe, but he's trying to persuade himself.

Dropping his phone in the cup holder beside him, Calum uses both of his hands to clench onto the wheel, his knuckles going pale from the fractious anxiety that was coming to a boil within the pit of his stomach, ready to bubble over any minute.

"How far away are you?" Luke trembled. "I need someone, Cal. You're the only one that answered me."

"Don't worry about that," says Calum. "I will be there, and that is all you need to worry about." Calum's eyes flickered from side to side in quick moments on the road, nothing but thick forest surrounding him. Dark has already enveloped the sky, nothing but the full moon reflecting light over the area. Calum feels that if he stops in the middle of the road, the night will swallow him whole and take him to another dimension. "Have you called the cops yet?" Calum's eyed began to squint as someone in a dark vehicle and tinted windows roared up behind him, their obnoxiously brilliant high beam headlights glaring into his rear-view mirror, nearly preventing him from being able to see the road at all.

"No," says Luke, sniffling into the mic. He was gripping onto his phone for dear life, his puffy and widened eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness around him. He wanted the lights on, so he could regain his ability to see. The dark was nothing else but discomforting, forcing Luke into thinking ominous thoughts.

Calum groans, one of his hands flying to his eyes, acting as a shade in effort to block out some of the car's bright light. He was half-tempted to honk his horn at the oblivious driver, as he was doing nothing but irritating him in his state of panic. Despite his irritation, Calum keeps his cool and continues driving onward. 

He has much more important priorities at the moment. Calum refocused himself on Luke as soon as he realized the terrifying state that they're both enduring. He needs to get the police onto the phone. "You need to call them, mate," he says, taking a sharp turn to the right that winds through the dense trees and acts as a quick backroad to the highway. His tires give out an ear-splitting squeal, the unpleasing smell of burnt rubber looming in the air and infesting the canal of Calum's nose. The road he's pulled onto is highly known to be windy, so he puts his other hand back on the steering wheel to rein total control.

Nearly over a half hour away, Luke has curled himself in a fetal position in his shower, his hot and clammy skin pressed against the frigid cold shower tiles. He held onto his phone as if he were clinging onto a ledge, his body heavy with weight as he dangles off an uneasy root that gradually squirms out from it's grip in the soil.

An unsettling feeling continuously rose in the pit of his stomach, making him lightheaded and nauseous. Once Calum firmly orders him to call Michael and the police, Luke feels sick to his stomach' he feels as though he's going to empty all of his stomach contents into the shower if he doesn't scurry on over to the toilet. With this sheer anxiety bubbling over within Luke, he slips out from the walk-in shower and throws himself over the toilet, getting sick into the bowl with pitiful gurgles and choking sobs.

Calum could do nothing but listen as Luke heaved up his dinner, his nose scrunching and his heart sinking.

Luke manages to catch his breath a few moments after allowing his stomach to settle, his mind wondering about nothing else but: _Did they hear me? Are they going to find me?_

Darting back into the safety of his walk-in shower, he slaps his hand over his eyes. "What if neither Michael or the police get here in time?" He asks, his voice tired and his face scrunching in distaste of the unpleasant vile lingering over his tongue.

Calum shakes his head, even if he's aware that Luke is unable to see him. "Mate, you need to try. We don't have that many options open for us."

With an uninterested groan, Luke immediately lets out a defeated sigh afterwards. "Can I call you back?" He asked, pinching his eyes closed as his voice lowers to the volume that would belong to the soft squeak of a house mouse.

"Of course," Calum says, finally honking his car's high-pitched horn as his patience gradually thins with the irritating driver behind him, the high beams still focused on him.

But within the blink of an eye, it all happens too fast. The world doesn't stop,or slow down, but in Calum's sense of time - all within a fraction of a second - he watch as the world he knows begins to crumple before him. 

There was a violent clash of metal, striking Calum's ears like a hammer against a nail. Burnt rubber began looming it's way through the air as his pathetic excuse for a car was struck from behind. It was the same hidden driver that kept his high beams on who collided with him, causing for Calum's vehicle to swerve to the right, breaking through the guardrail. 

Calum and his vehicle tumbled down in fast circles down a slope, the right side of the car striking a tree. It was a sudden stop, and if it weren't for Calum wearing a seatbelt, he would already be lying dead on the ground, his body going cold as the life drains out of his limp corpse. He was breathing shallowly. His car is now a mess of bent metal, smoke drifting from underneath the hood as parts of the car whine from the many blows. 

By then, Calum had been knocked unconscious after his head struck the steering wheel from the forceful impact given from behind. Deep incisions were made from the shattered glass that scattered everywhere from his windows. Swelling was occurring in every which area on his body, all from heavy bruising or snapped bones. He could come off as unrecognizable. 

The hood of his car is crumbled, the paint job scrapped from the impact and the tumbling itself, the bodies of smoke rising and becoming larger in form, all emerging from underneath the scrunched hood. Any of Calum's belongings have either flown out from the car and dispersed amongst the area or tumbled to random nooks and crannies of the vehicle. 

As for Luke, he feels the world spinning at high speeds, his heart flying into his throat as the incomprehensible crashing noises ceased, following in a deadly silence. Luke swallowed thickly, trying to build up the courage to speak. Nothing falls from his lips. Those terrifying sounds cannot happen for no reason.

Something happened, and now Luke feels a wave of unsettlement wash over his quivering body, listening closely as the front door slams closed. 

The intruders have finally left the house. 

~|~

Everything was moving too fast for his clustered brain to fathom. Ashton's head suddenly feels like it's made of lead; he feels top heavy and as if he's about to topple over. He catches himself, but it doesn't stop the world from whirling around him in a dark blur. As soon as he received the calls and listened to Luke's frantic voicemails, he dropped the card game, snatched his jacket, and left. He slapped two hundred bucks down on the table. He left it.

_"Ashton, they're back. They're breaking all of our things, I'm scared, and... God, I just really need you right now."_

_"Ashton, you need to answer me. I feel like they're getting closer. Please pick up..."_

_"Babe, I... I can't... Something terrible has happened. It's Calum."_

_"When you get this, come to the hospital. I don't know if he's going to be okay."_

Speeding down the dark streets of the barren town in the midst of the perplexing night, Ashton approached the hospital in a blur. He parked and didn't care to lock the car before hustling in a brisk jog into the emergency room. He took the elevator to the floor above, stabbing button for the floor to the waiting room in the emergency wing. He pressed it many times as if it could understand his rush. The steel doors whooshed closed, bringing him to the desired floor. 

The doors fluently slid open. Ashton nearly fell to his knees as he watched Calum's family members crouched over in the waiting room chairs, unsure of Calum's condition. Faces were painted with hot tears as they streamed down their cheeks. It was a scene of heartbreak. 

All that they had told Luke, Michael, and Calum's family members was they were taking him into emergency surgery, wheeling his battered body into the O.R.

Ashton's hazel eyes found Luke and Michael sitting nearby. Michael was frozen in place, staring off into the distance, watching the walking feet of the nurses pass by as he continuously tries to crack his knuckles. Inside his thoughts, he felt bare. Michael felt like all that had happened _didn't happen_ _._ But once he saw Calum's body, caked in blood and limbs folding in unnatural ways, he was immediately convinced. And that's when he realized, that just like anyone else in the room, he couldn't bear to lose his best friend.

As for Luke, his eyes immediately located Ashton upon exiting the elevator, his brilliant baby blues surrounded by puffy eyelids and vivid redness from his falling tears. His jaw visibly clenched as he watched Ashton walk over with rush in his steps.

"Where the hell were you?" Luke shouted at him, automatically triggering Michael's attention, and everyone else's, around them.  Michael dart up from his seat to keep Luke from colliding his fist with Ashton's jaw. He tightly grasps onto Luke's wrists and pulls them behind his back.

Ashton understood Luke's burning fury. He has every right to be angry. Ashton sheds his jacket off from his stressed shoulders and tosses it to the chairs, never tearing his eyes away from Luke. The sharp glare that was forced upon his way struck him in the heart, watching as Luke's upper lip hooks into a sneer. 

"Babe, I was _out,_ " Ashton began softly, holding his hands in a visual defensive stance. "I didn't know. I couldn't know. And I'm sorry. I'm here now."

Luke snarled with his voice well above appropriate volume, "Of course you didn't, you moron!" He was still squirming under Michael's strength. "I call you when someone invades our _house_ _,_ and you're still out getting high out of your mind? What is so hard about keeping your phone on you so you know that someone is trying to reach you?" Luke's cheeks flush a deep crimson, his jugular vein prominent as he shouts at Ashton mercilessly. 

Calum's father, David, darts up onto his feet from his seat, grasping onto Luke by the shoulders and nudging him away. He firmly tells Luke to back down, urging him down back into his seat. "You think throwing a fist is going to resolve this? Calum got into a _car_ _accident_ you oblivious children!" He shook his head in disapproval, averting his eyes between the quarreling couple. "Save your arguments for later. We don't need anymore on our plate. Take it outside if you need. I don't care."

David turns his back and rejoins his family, sitting himself beside Joy as she threw her arms around his shoulders, burying her face into the crook of his neck as she murmurs weak cries as she prays for her son's safety. "My baby boy..."

Michael glanced at Ashton, maintaining brief eye contact before speaking firmly through his gritted teeth, "You need to get a grip, mate. Calum's going to need us more than ever." His tensed shoulders fell as he dropped Luke's wrists from his hands and plops himself back into his waiting chair, frustratingly running his fingers through his vibrantly dyed hair, teeth gnawing into his darkly tinted lips, chapped from the brisk air.

Ashton, standing before everyone as he is still trying to wrap the situation around his brain, takes a seat beside Michael, avoiding all means of eye contact with Luke. He can feel his electrifying blue eyes piercing into him, making him feel vulnerable and out of place.

He runs his clammy hands over his jean-clasped knees, his fingers trembling as his previous dosage of heroine begins to drain out from his body, making his thoughts become much more alert and overwhelming while leaving behind a miserable, lifeless skeleton. That's all Ashton has been feeling lately - like a walking skeleton, with no thought process, no emotions. Lifeless.

Not only did Calum get into a brutal car accident, but Luke said that someone invaded their home and began trashing things _again_ \- throwing furniture across the room, and destroying expensive equipment. That makes Ashton begin to wonder _why._ This is the second incident, and Luke was home while everything was being thrown around. Is someone trying to deliver a message to them? Did Ashton and Luke not get the clue before? What exactly are they trying to tell them? Who?

If Ashton was to make an educated guess about who is involved with invading the space of his home, he would have a name in mind. However, he doesn't have the physical evidence to prove himself. And once he tells Luke about the suspected intruder, he's going to blow a fuse that has already burned out inside of him. 

Who can live with themselves when they knew that they could have done something to protect the person that they love? Ashton almost feels the need to slip out of the hospital building immediately and to tell these men to _back the fuck off._ Luke is initially the entire meaning of his life and is the only reason why he's here anymore. His life revolves around his beloved blonde. 

Ashton boosts himself onto the flats of his feet, approaching Luke with uncertainty but a hint of urgency. He extends a hand out in front of Luke, waiting as Luke simply stares at the palm of his hand, to his hazel eyes, and back to his extended digits. "We need to talk," Ashton says softly, trying to tune out the heart-wrenching sounds of Calum's family.

It was all too much to listen as Mali continuously begged for an answer from God himself, searching for a reason as to why Calum deserved this form of punishment when he's the most rewarding of a person that anyone will ever meet. Ashton took that as another blow to his aching heart, biting onto his tongue to keep tears from forming over the brims of his eyes.

Luke's stare nearly made Ashton break a sweat, leaving him dangling on edge until he stood up, entirely denying the hold of Ashton's hand. This is a way to tell them that he will agree to talk, but he is in no ways happy with Ashton, which is entirely expected.

Luke took the lead, stuffing his clenched fists into his pockets and slunching his tense shoulders as he exhaled a tense breath, taking all of the stress that was on with it. Ashton, nervously gnawing at the inside of his cheek, follows him with his head down, staring at Luke's beaten down black Vans as they exited the building.

"You wanted to talk," Luke hisses. "So you better talk now before I go back inside and hold my main concern to our best friend."

Ashton took this as a blow to the heart, physically wincing at Luke's harsh edge. He shivered at the cool air as it blasted against his skin, goosebumps arising underneath his heavy jacket. "It's about who may have broken in to our house."

Luke laughs bitterly, shaking his head in disbelief. "Are you fucking with me right now?"

Ashton gives Luke a frown, staring as Luke turned his back to Ashton to run his hands down his face. "Luke, this it's fucking serious," says Ashton, holding a firmness in his voice that he has to be careful about. He doesn't want to start a commotion with Luke out in public and end up being sent home after receiving a black eye. "I know I didn't do a good thing today, but I have an idea on who is persistently invading our privacy. Doesn't that matter to you?"

Luke turned his head and looked over his shoulder, his eyebrows furrowing as he stared at Ashton with a hard gaze, his jaw clenched as he bites back some foul words that are lingering on yhe tip of his tongue. However, he knows better than to start something out in public like this - not when Calum's father got involved when they first began yelling at each other in the waiting room.

"You're asking if it matters to me?" He says, as it was the most obvious thing. "Of course it does. Ashton, by the way that those people have continuously entered our home and ruined what we have, I want their asses kicked. If you know who it is, tell me. But right now, my main concern is Calum. He got into a major car crash and it looks like you care too much about things between us to look at other things that are happening around you."

With that said, giving Ashton a sudden feel as to how the conversation is over, Luke walks back towards the doors, his shoulder just barely grazing against Ashton's.

Just like that, Ashton internally snapped.

He never stepped foot inside of the hospital. Instead he turned on his heels to make way to his car and pulled out his phone, quickly punching in some number and dialing up a hidden contact in his phone. He begins walking briskly through the parking lot, approaching his car in a hurry, anger slowly beginning to boil within him.

The world was crumbling beneath his feet, and these scoundrels we're making the situations worse, feeding the devil who is causing all of this pain and suffering at once. Ashton has to put an end to it before the trouble grows out of uncontrollable proportions. He needs to bring aid to us best friend, his boyfriend, and himself.

A malicious chuckle sounds on the line as Ashton backs out of his parking space, pulling out of the parking lot and making way towards the highway, one hand tightly clenched on the steering wheel and the other gripping his phone.

"Hello, Ashton. We've been wondering when you'd get into contact with me again. It's almost like you're trying to avoid me."

Jaxon Richards is the head of a drug department that is blooming in wealth. Known to typical customers as Jax's Studio, they've never had major issues with upper authorities about handling illegal drugs. They are the business that Ashton buys all of his angel dust from. He hasn't spoken to the head of the business in ages, only trading from smaller and less intimidating workers in the industry. However, Ashton's boiling rage is hot enough to face Jaxon face to face and demand his privacy. He should know better than this.

"What are you doing?" Ashton hisses. "Defacing my property, destroying all that I have - what is it? What more could you possibly want from me? I am paid off."

Jaxon, lounging in his office, kicks his feet up onto his desk. He is a broad man of staggering height, 6 feet and 8 inches - just enough to look down at Ashton. His arms are covered with tattoos, sleeves adorned with color and symbols that only Jaxon would know. Putting his phone on speaker, Jaxon settles it upon his lap, stretching his hands behind his head and relaxing into his well-cushioned office chair.

With an amused laugh, Jaxon's cold brown eyes bounce across his working area, glacing momentarily at his computer screen, gazing at the security cameras displayed before him. He is a man with power beyond belief, and has eyes at the back of his head. No secret can be kept from him. Ashton has nothing to go with against him.

"Now, mister Irwin. I don't appreciate that attitude of yours." His arms relaxed at his lap once again, his fingertips tapping against his armrests. "Change your tone and I might consider answering a question of yours."

Ashton, his cheeks flushing a dark crimson, clenches his jaw and swallows down a long string of profanity that is urging it's way up his throat. He manages to bite them down, but there's still a hint of edge to his voice. "Don't play dumb with me. I am _not_ in the mood."

"Neither am I," says Jaxon, scratching the dark scrubble along his jaw. "I'm being very professional here, Ashton."

Feeling as though he wants to tear his hair out from his scalp, Ashton speeds in front of a cluster of cars along the freeway, leading to the ouside of the small town he calls home. He's making his way to the home base to have an up close and personal chat with Jaxon himself.

"Just don't tell your servants to shoot me when they see me at the main base," Ashton said. "I'm want to have a small chat with you." The line cut dead before the malicious head of the drug business had time to reply.

~

Upon arrival at the main head quarters, where Jaxon is most common to be found, Ashton approaches a small cluster of his workers. Handguns are held in pockets at their sides, so Ashton is more than cautious when he's speaking to them. With their base located in the dense woods, they can do anything they wish to avoid contact with the police. Even if it means disposing a body.

Ashton rolls his window down, making eye contact with a man that looks a bit familiar to him, but decides not to get hung up over who he is.

"Are you here to see Jaxon?" He asks, his voice gravelly, two other men flanked at his sides to offer protection. Ashton nods, and the man gestures for him to pull his car to the side of the dirt road, abandoning his car until he returns. Hopefully.

Ashton does as so, handing over his car keys to another one of the men whose eyes are guarded by dark shades, Ashton's reflection and the glare of the bright night posts glaring against the lenses. He makes it personally humorous to himself, noting as to how it's the early morning and there is absolutely no trace of the sun in the sky.

The man who appears to be in charge of the entrance way murmurs some orders to the other two men before he nods for Ashton to follow him. He makes sure to have one hand by his gun for need of protection. Not like Ashton will randomly jump on him anytime soon. He knows better, and he's here for one reason only.

"Jaxon told us you'd be here," the man spoke, his heavy boots scuffing against the dirt road as they were approaching the massive building. "He warned us that you weren't particularly happy, either. Oh, and by the way, you can call me Devon."

Ashton stared at him for a moment, observing the remnants of black spray paint on his fingers, streaks and speckles stretched down to his wrist. Than was wearing a dirty t-shirt, exposing his toned biceps that are littered in tattoos down to his elbow. The inked masterpieces were condescending, some contrasting against others and some appearing like utter nonsense. He used a flashlight that fits in the palm of his hand to guide their way down the road through the dark.

The building could hardly be made out in the dark, but they eventually reached the doors. Ashton hasn't personally paid a visit to the main headquarters, but he's heard some things passed around, and once you enter the building, you could never tell it was a crack house.

The man slipped out a key card from his back pocket, sliding it through a reader. The receiver blinked blinked bright green, allowing the door to swing open. Ashton is gestured inside first, and he's immediately greeted with an environment he most certainly would have never expected. Their successful profits show in the homey-styled flooring,

The place felt more like a mansion than it ever could feel like headquarters for the state's top secret illegal drug industry. The immense about of expenses in the building show, giving a visual of just how powerful Jaxon is. He's the boss of everyone, and no one dares to go behind his back. This makes Ashton swallow down an upcoming surge of vomit. He suddenly felt sick to his stomach.

"It looks great inside, huh?" Says Devon, sliding the card back into his tight pockets. "Looks like a slop from the outside, but hardly anyone can comprehend what it looks like when they step in. Just wait and see when you're in Jaxon's office. It will blow your mind."

Ashton has his arms cross his chest. "It's obvious that you're successful..." he says, his teeth beginning to anxiously gnaw into the inner walls of his cheeks.

Devon chuckles, nodding his head. "It's only because of the ecstatic number of druggie that like to get high off their mind." He shrugs his shoulders, kicking his heavy boots into an abrasive door mat to scrape off all of the dirt particles. Ashton takes precaution to the luxurious surroundings and decides he'd do the same with his heavily worn converse.

He didn't want to get shot in the head for dragging in muck from the outside.

Devon begins making his way through the room, pulling up a pile of folders from the desk to reveal an installed red button within the desktop, lifting the shell up and unveiling a sliding door from behind a large bookcase. Ashton's eyebrows perked upward, his jaw slacking in awe of the technology.

He begins to feel as though he's staring in a science fictional spy movie.

"Go on, dude. The door closes in ten seconds. We don't have all day," he urges Ashton with his words, stroking his facial hair.

Ashton moved forward towards the doorway that opens to a flight of stairs leading upward. In the darkness, a light flickered on and lit the intimidating steps into what he thinks would be his death sentence. He ascends up the steps, applying extra precaution to his steps as he makes his way up.

His heartbeat deafens his ears, blood surging through his veins as he makes his way to the top. His nostrils were immediately met with the scent of burning pot. Someone was smoking heavily within the room. The person guilty of the crime is no other than Jaxon himself.

Ashton walks into a room of some kind of elegance. It was a very open space that has to be the size of Ashton's living room multiplied by five put together. The ceiling was risen high above his head and there hung a _fucking chandelier._ Ashton's jaw slackens as he cranes his head backwards to gaze at the large piece hung from the ceiling, the dangling pieces sparkling from the spotlights that lit up the room.

You can find a pool table, lounging chairs, and the heads of hunted trophies hung up on the wall. Ashton as to look away quickly before he can feel the eyes of a bear following him. He wonders to himself if Jaxon has installed cameras into small crevices that couldn't possibly be discovered unless the entire room underwent a thorough investigation. 

Book shelves aligned most of the walls, books with densely abused spines stuffed in disarray along the shelves, packed with little to no space in between. 

"Do you like my office, Irwin?" Says a dark voice that shook Ashton's bones, his knees almost buckling underneath his weight. His head snapped over in the direction and looked at Jaxon straight in the eye, Jaxon's deadly gaze piercing his. "I spend quite some time on it. I like to show people just how beneath me they are."

Jaxon had a lit blunt balanced between his index and middle finger, glowing read as he takes another long drag inward, allowing the intoxicating smoke to whirl in clouds within his lungs. He had his feet kicked up on the top of his solid mahogany desk, body cushioned in his leather rolling chair.

"I see that," Ashton bites. "I can see that you like to remind people that quite often."

Jaxon chuckles, white smoke drifting out from his mouth and evaporating into the air above him. "You see, Ashton," he begins, slipping his feet of the desk and leaning his forearms there, arching his back forward, "sometimes I have to remind people of what they have, and what I have. Sometimes they tend to forget, and they end up... well, kissing the ground."

Ashton notices how his mouth feels like cotton, running his tongue around the walls and roof of his mouth, searching for some sort of moisture. He stuffs his hands into his front pockets.

Jaxon boots himself up from his desktop, sliding his chair in and placing the blunt in a glass ashtray, all while staring Ashton in the eyes. "Do you mind if I tell you a story?"

Ashton remains silent, arms folding across his chest.

Jaxon claps his hands together, an intimidating smile spreading across his lips. "Great! This is a good one. You won't regret it."

Ashton's stomach begins to twist and turn in his abdomen, pulling back ringlets of hair from his eyes, readjusting his jacket and stuffing his hands into the pockets. He's afraid of what he's going to hear.

"I knew this great man once," he begins, smiling off into the distance, standing onto his feet and sliding the chair in to his desk, "and he had almost everything he could ever dream of. He was engaged, had and baby in the way, but then all shit hit the fan when one of his friends dragged him out and got him to shoot heroine through his veins." He scratches the stubble on his jaw, his hawk eyes meeting Ashton's. "He was an intelligent man. He owned a small business, but he had good money in his pockets."

Ashton still wondered how this mattered.

"As the child's due date came closer, the more this dude was hooked to my angel dust. Not only was he addicted to the shit, but he never paid me back. Fuck, did he make a mistake."

"He was in debt. And this was the beginning of my career, so I didn't have any set ground rules for customers. If he said he'd pay me back, I would take his word for it. However, can you guess what happened?"

Jaxon made made a gesture to Ashton. The curly haired lad froze for a moment before he realized he was supposed to answer. "Um. He never paid back?"

"Exactly!" Jaxon shouts, his hands shooting up in the air in outrage. He slams a fist down onto the desktop, his lamp, computer, and other belongings shaking from the amount of force his fist sent. "And I made that fucker pay. I have to be firm in order for anyone paying me to understand the consequences. I'm not afraid of killing to get what I want, Ashton."

Ashton's eyebrows knitted together, still wondering to himself as to how this relates to him. He's good about paying off his bills. "Is this supposed to be some kind of message directed towards me?"

Jaxon's eyes rolled dramatically, sighing heavily before retreating to his computer. He types in some information on his computer regarding his private files and brings up Ashton's name. "If you take a look here, you can see that you are nearly a grand in debt. You haven't paid since the beginning of last month."

Ashton's heart flew to his throat, eyes hugging out of their sockets. "No," says Ashton. "I have paid you back. Every bit. I don't owe you shit."

Jaxon raises an eyebrow questionably in Ashton's direction. "I disagree. Who have you been giving your money to?" He folds his arms across his chest.

"My carrier is Logan," says Ashton. "We meet up every other week so I can give him the money and he can trade me the supply of dust for the next week or so."

Jaxon gives out a laugh that bounces off the walls, reverberating in Ashton's ears. "Logan was just recently cut off a while ago. I had some of my most trustworthy men take care of him, though. He's been caught collecting money and spending it for himself. That's a damn shame, really." Jaxon snickers devilishly, rolling his eyes. "I always knew he had an itching palm for green paper."

Ashton's heart falls into his stomach, the realization delayed but all the more troubling, slapping him across the face. So he's been giving his money to someone that doesn't even handed it to the main business? And now Ashton's ass is on the line? The factors all aligned up, and it made sense, giving reason why his house has been broken into.

"I feel like I am going to be sick," says the curly boy, one hand pressing to his stomach. "So you're telling me that I am in debt? And that's why you have been breaking my shit and defacing my property?"

Jaxon shrugs his shoulders. "I just tell my men to get the ones in debt to pay. I have no idea as to what their tactics are. To be very blunt, I don't care. I just want my money they owe me."

"How... how much?" Ashton croaks.

Jaxon grins. "You've soared to the thousands my friend. I know we're not all made of money, but I now recommend that you find some technique and stick with it."

He feels like he's unbalanced on his feet, having to lean on the backrest of a chair for standing support, his head spinning and eyes wanting to roll out of the socket. How could have things blown out of proportion so quickly? How could he have gotten himself into this mess? How could he have risked  _Luke?_

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't puke all over my floors." Says Jaxon with venom dripping from his words, his thick eyebrows knitting together as he watches Ashton lose all color to his face, now resembling the color of a piece of printing paper.

Ashton runs his palm over the scruff along his tightly cut jawline. "I'll get it, okay?" He runs his fingers through his air. "I'll get the money. I just need time."


End file.
